If every day has the same amount of time in it, how come some days seem so long?

Don't need my groove anymore anyway...

I told you the story about the mean, mean trick my older brothers and sisters played on me (the oldest denies any knowledge of the incident, btw).

Even shy, dorky clowns can somehow stumble into good relationships. At least this one did.

I used to umpire baseball. I did games for the Carrollton (TX) Little League in 1980 and 1981. These were 7 and 8 year old boys playing real baseball. Kids pitched, other kids hit, everyone ran the bases and I called balls and strikes. The first year I was very accurate with my strike zone and watched alot of young men learn to take every pitch and walk in the six runs allowed each inning. The second year, I told coaches that the players weren't learning anything about baseball and those kids capable of hitting the ball needed to start swinging because close would be a strike for them. They explained to the kids and their parents; the season was off to a great start.

I'm not sure how many of you have been around youth sports leagues. The term "soccer mom" hadn't been invented yet, but the general idea was the same. For a single young man, the parents didn't present many options for romance, especially for a clown ;-) (except Guy Baldwin's never-married mom, but that is a different post).

The leagues played night games on nicely manicured fields. Bright lights, scoreboards and announcers were all things I didn't have in Little League. The parents took turns covering the official scorer and announcer positions. They sat on a raised platform just outside the chain-link fence on the first base side of the backstop. After a year and a half, I had met most of the parents and was on good terms with them, the players and coaches. One of the more talented players was a precocious 8 year old named Scooter. One of the better pitchers in the league, Scooter had an huge smile and quick laugh. He was also one of the players I told to "hit it if it's close."


On one of Scooter's scheduled nights to pitch, I looked up at the scorer's platform to see who was announcing and keeping the book. My heart skipped a beat when to my surprise, the hottie in the picture here was sitting up there (in that same top). Scooter's aunt, Stephanie had been asked by the boy's mother to cover her turn as announcer while she "worked the concession stand."

Both of us fell for this ruse as Bonnie worked her matchmaking skills. Incessant flirting, awkward moments, a mother's near heartbreak (it was mistaken identity), and Bonnie's direct intervention led to dating, courtship, marriage and two beautiful children. I am hopeful that we will be blessed and celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary on New Year's Eve in 2033.

In the meantime, it's a shared journey through life's highs and lows. Sometimes passionate, many times not, but always moving forward. But once in a while it's fun to look back....

NY Times editorial worth reading

Wake sent me a link to this Charles Marsh op-ed piece from the Times titled Wayward Christian Soldiers. Marsh is a professor of religion at the University of Virginia and counts himself an evangelical Christian (as do I). He articulates thoughts and problems many of us have with being told the war in Iraq is a mission for God.
For other Christians, this may be helpful. To non-Christians, this will show you that not all of us are ready to join the latest crusade, and in fact it may be wrong.
If you aren't a member of the Times on-line thing, join to read this.

It's Friday Random Ten Time!

Really, you should add your list here. And I want you to.
But Annamaria is running late today, and I have had too much coffee, so mine goes up here and there....
1) Scarecrow Collection - Moon Will Rise
2) Audio Adrenaline - Summertime
3) Neil Young - Burned
4) Jerry Garcia & Dave Grisman - Jackaroo
5) Bruce Springsteen - Balboa Park
6) Jerry Garcia - Accidently Like A Martyr
7) Jimmy LaFave - San Franscisco
8) Ziggy Marley - World So Corrupt
9) Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
10) Sheryl Crow & Emmy Lou Harris - Juanita
Next?

Annamaria tagged me...

I think. At least, it has my name here. At first I didn't it was me but it is a link back, so it must be.

Five Random Things about me (which may be four too many):

#1 - My eyes, I'm told, change color. They go from green to blue. I don't know why. A girl I was dating many years ago seemed to think she could gauge my horniness by their color. Uh, hello? At eighteen years old, that figure is constant in males.

#2 - I'm lefthanded. My wife is lefthanded. Both our girls are righthanded. I think that's odd, but have no basis for the thought.

#3 - The second toes on my feet - you know the one next to the big toe? - is shorter than the big toe. I have seen some people where that is not the case. If it was a big deal one way or the other, wouldn't evolution have weeded out the weaker by now?

#4 - I was wrongly arrested in Agawam, MA after being beaten by a police officer. He lost his job, but was reinstated after an appeal to the state civil service board. I don't hate police and we didn't sue. Times sure have changed in 30 years, huh?

#5 - Skydiving/Freefall was the best, most intense rush I have EVER had. Moreso than acid, coke, meth, THC, mescaline, or any other dope. There is something so absurd and ridiculous about looking out the open door of a plane, knowing that momentarily you are going to voluntarily jump out. And the exhilaration of actually doing it is indescribable. Although I just tried. Witnessing the birth of my daughters was a different sort of mind f***. I giggled about the same at each.

Bruce and Leslie, if you read it, consider yourself "it". I'll be looking for your answers....
I hope I did this right.

Maybe they aren't all crazy...

The US Supreme Court today upheld Oregon's law regarding physician assisted suicide.
It figures that Justices Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas would dissent with those justices that believe the power to regulate this sort of issue is the purview of the states. What strikes me as ironic about the ground being staked out by conservatives is that it is exactly the ground liberals were criticized about for years by the right - that of the Federal Goverment becoming an oppressive authority interferring with people's everyday lives. Conservatives, having acquired power in almost all areas of goverence now, are demonstrating the belief in their views' rightness by attempting to force others to conform to them.
Fortunately, it appears there is still some degree of sanity left on the Court and not all justices are ready to rubber-stamp conservative ideology.

On this particular issue, I also agree with the decision. It seems to me that the dissenters are missing one key element in the role of a physician in a person's life - while it is true the oath states, "do no harm," isn't it part of a doctor's responsibility to assist a patient to develop, maintain and live out the quality of life one seeks?
When Justice Scalia writes, "If the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death," he reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of the role I want my doctor to play in my life. If it becomes medically certain that I am facing imminnent death, I would hope to be allowed to pass with dignity.
If this law is unjust, where is the clamor to eliminate hospice care for terminal patients? When my father was near the end of his battle with cancer, his hospice nurse counseled my mother not to dial 911 as the end approached. Once put into that system, all medical means possible would have been mandated to prolong Dad's existence (but not his life; in my opinion that was already over). The decision for hospice was made after much soul searching, discussion and anguished moments between Mom and Dad, I'm sure. Married for more than 40 years, their lives were totally connected. The realization that one would have to go on could not have been easy. Yet with love and concern for each other, they decided together that the suffering each would endure by prolonging his struggle, while vastly different, would be too cruel for each to consider inflicting on the other. So he was allowed to die in his own bed, with morphine for pain management.
Mom always told me that if she had known Dr. Kevorkian's telephone number, she'd of called him. She was so sad to watch his decline. I'm pretty sure he wasn't enjoying the ride either.

I love being alive. Every breath is an adventure, a gift, a moment that I am so glad to have been given, even though not every second is pleasurable. Sugar and spice. Salt and pepper. It's all good. But when my life here is done, when I can no longer travel my mind's weird pathways and can no longer savor its taste, don't keep me around simply because it is medically possible. Let me go, because I'll be going home...

It was the Groove Tube

Does anyone remember what Brown 25 is and where it is known from?
There's a hint in the title of this post.
It's not a leather lace, by the way. Google won't help. But a real Richard Belzer fan would know....
Clue 2 - Don McLean drove one (another star) to the levee...
Daisy guessed Chevy and that's right - Chevy Chase and Richard Belzer starred in this funny, bizarre movie that was really a string of sketches. My friends and I laughed really hard when we saw this.