HA! Beautiful...St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans Sunday.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Back at the Ponderosa...
Pernell Roberts, the last surviving member of "Bonanza," the classic TV Western, died Sunday at his Malibu home.
"Bonanza" is second to "Gunsmoke" as the longest-running Western on TV. Dan Blocker (Hoss) died in 1972, Loren Greene (Ben Cartwright) in 1987, and Michael Landon (Little Joe) in 1991. Roberts was the oldest son, Adam.
This hurts me. If Hop Sing is dead, do not tell me. I don't want him to be dead; I want him to be alive, cooking up another bad meal for the Cartwright clan. I loved my Cartwright clan.
There is a Hollywood prop Web site that sells stuff like "The Adam." I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that, but there you go. I'm just sayin...
Sunday, January 24, 2010
'Bert' and the Modern Battle of New Orleans
Even Ol’ Hickory and Johnny Horton and the Witch Queen of New Orleans would have to sell their souls to get a ticket to today’s NFC Championship Game between the Saints and the spur-under-your-saddle Dallas Cowboys.
Oh, wait a minute. That’s not right. Dallas got torched last week in Minneapolis. Barely beaten, 34-33.
What? Wait. Sorry. I meant 34-THREE. Just one three. Just three more points than you and I scored. And the Cowboys had practiced since July. To get beaten by four touchdowns-plus.
(Wade Phillips is a nice guy you can tell, but every time they show him on the sidelines I see a marshmallow with headphones on. I don’t mean that ugly. His dad was nice and he’s nice and all that, but Cowboys fans, you do know that until you get another person to bring some swagger to match the persona, like Jimmy Johnson or Barry Switzer or Jon Gruden, or a football-smart classy person to rise above it like Tom Landry, it’s not gonna happen. It’s just not. Even I know that. And I like Dallas, the town and the people and all. But I’m just sayin…)
So, it’s the Saints and the Minnesota Vikings, led by Brett Favre, 40 in real years and about 25 in Brett Favre years.
Or, as my sister’s beautiful father-in-law calls him, Bert Farve.
Bert.
Whatever you call him, and despite his tendency to have crazy games where the tries to throw passes through defensive backs, he’s a bad hombre.
Unless Bert decides to retire (again) before the 5:40 kickoff, he will be a sort of cherry on the top of a memorable football hot fudge sundae Sunday.
Look what you’ve got:
* Bert being Bert.
* In north Louisiana, longsuffering Saints fans still rooting for a team that’s alive – and favored! – experience the rarified air of January victories while their rival Darth Vader villains – Cowboys fans – fume that the Vikings “ran up” the score last week. The franchise of T.O. and Neon Deion and a facelifted owner and a billion-dollar stadium complains that teams with 40-year-old quarterbacks need to take it easy on them? The Cowboy fan is now in the unenviable position of rooting for either the “sore winners” or for the stepchild Saints.
* You’ve got a rebuilding city playing for a title in a dome that five years ago was the world’s largest triage center.
* A Saints quarterback who does what Saints fans have watched other teams do to theirs through the years: complete 70 percent of his passes, most of them to tall, fast receivers who play with a kind of confident nonchalance. Silent assassins.
* Of course you have the backdrop itself, the City of New Orleans, an R-rated amusement park that’s shown a heart for football, even though it’s basically had to share one swing set and one slide since 1967. These people are bursting at the laces.
* And then, again, good ol’ Bert. Good ol’ Wrangler-wearin’, mind-changing, ancient yet energetic Bert from neighboring Mississippi, the kid next door who just refuses to come in from recess.
Journalists are not supposed to show favoritism. But I guess I’m just a writer these days, not a real journalist.
So Go Saints.
In my heart of hearts (whatever that is), I don’t care too much who wins or who loses and never really have. When I was writing ballgames all the time, I just wanted to cover what happened. Naturally you pull for people to do well – or not – when you get to know them. Human nature. I don’t know them anymore. But don’t you feel like you sort of know the Saints? When I look at them I always see their body of work, all the losing seasons, and those few autumns I watched them lose to the 49ers and Falcons and even the Cowboys, regularly as a faucet drip. Sort of hapless but …. In the words of Luther Ingram, if loving them is wrong, do you really want to be right?
Maybe it’s time the writers I know whose final Saints playoff story of the season (though rare) was always about a loss, maybe they get to write a happy tale for a change. Maybe the ‘Aints get to bury the bags. Maybe the greatest of them all, Saint Archie, gets the pleasure of rooting for one of his sons to actually beat his favorite team in, of all things, the Super Bowl. Maybe, for the city and for all the ghosts of Saints past…
Richard Todd,
Deuce and Dempsey,
Hokie Gajan,
Anne Rice whimsy.
Big Will Roaf,
Abramowicz,
Billy Kilmer,
Mayfair witch.
Joe Horn phones,
Manning scrambles,
Handoff to
The Earl of Campbell,
John Hill, Jake Kupp,
Stram’s toupee,
(I think I’ll look
the other way…)
Bum Phillips in his
Cowboy hat,
Grammatic fumbles
Like “Who Dat?!”
Garden District,
Quarter French,
TWO Billy Joes
Come off the bench!
Blasts from the past
Like Rod McNeil.
Can you say,
“Joe Federspiel”?
Zellars, Hilliard,
Mills, Capone,
Did patrolling
In the ’Dome.
Tommy Myers and
Tony G.,
Let’s give them all
A fleur de lis!
“What’s the diff
today?” you ask.
Well, these guys can
Run AND pass
And kick and catch,
Play defense too.
And heaven knows
They’re way past due.
So…
New Orleans/Vikes.
What will it be?
I’ll roll the dice here:
Saints by 3.
-30-
Oh, wait a minute. That’s not right. Dallas got torched last week in Minneapolis. Barely beaten, 34-33.
What? Wait. Sorry. I meant 34-THREE. Just one three. Just three more points than you and I scored. And the Cowboys had practiced since July. To get beaten by four touchdowns-plus.
(Wade Phillips is a nice guy you can tell, but every time they show him on the sidelines I see a marshmallow with headphones on. I don’t mean that ugly. His dad was nice and he’s nice and all that, but Cowboys fans, you do know that until you get another person to bring some swagger to match the persona, like Jimmy Johnson or Barry Switzer or Jon Gruden, or a football-smart classy person to rise above it like Tom Landry, it’s not gonna happen. It’s just not. Even I know that. And I like Dallas, the town and the people and all. But I’m just sayin…)
So, it’s the Saints and the Minnesota Vikings, led by Brett Favre, 40 in real years and about 25 in Brett Favre years.
Or, as my sister’s beautiful father-in-law calls him, Bert Farve.
Bert.
Whatever you call him, and despite his tendency to have crazy games where the tries to throw passes through defensive backs, he’s a bad hombre.
Unless Bert decides to retire (again) before the 5:40 kickoff, he will be a sort of cherry on the top of a memorable football hot fudge sundae Sunday.
Look what you’ve got:
* Bert being Bert.
* In north Louisiana, longsuffering Saints fans still rooting for a team that’s alive – and favored! – experience the rarified air of January victories while their rival Darth Vader villains – Cowboys fans – fume that the Vikings “ran up” the score last week. The franchise of T.O. and Neon Deion and a facelifted owner and a billion-dollar stadium complains that teams with 40-year-old quarterbacks need to take it easy on them? The Cowboy fan is now in the unenviable position of rooting for either the “sore winners” or for the stepchild Saints.
* You’ve got a rebuilding city playing for a title in a dome that five years ago was the world’s largest triage center.
* A Saints quarterback who does what Saints fans have watched other teams do to theirs through the years: complete 70 percent of his passes, most of them to tall, fast receivers who play with a kind of confident nonchalance. Silent assassins.
* Of course you have the backdrop itself, the City of New Orleans, an R-rated amusement park that’s shown a heart for football, even though it’s basically had to share one swing set and one slide since 1967. These people are bursting at the laces.
* And then, again, good ol’ Bert. Good ol’ Wrangler-wearin’, mind-changing, ancient yet energetic Bert from neighboring Mississippi, the kid next door who just refuses to come in from recess.
Journalists are not supposed to show favoritism. But I guess I’m just a writer these days, not a real journalist.
So Go Saints.
In my heart of hearts (whatever that is), I don’t care too much who wins or who loses and never really have. When I was writing ballgames all the time, I just wanted to cover what happened. Naturally you pull for people to do well – or not – when you get to know them. Human nature. I don’t know them anymore. But don’t you feel like you sort of know the Saints? When I look at them I always see their body of work, all the losing seasons, and those few autumns I watched them lose to the 49ers and Falcons and even the Cowboys, regularly as a faucet drip. Sort of hapless but …. In the words of Luther Ingram, if loving them is wrong, do you really want to be right?
Maybe it’s time the writers I know whose final Saints playoff story of the season (though rare) was always about a loss, maybe they get to write a happy tale for a change. Maybe the ‘Aints get to bury the bags. Maybe the greatest of them all, Saint Archie, gets the pleasure of rooting for one of his sons to actually beat his favorite team in, of all things, the Super Bowl. Maybe, for the city and for all the ghosts of Saints past…
Richard Todd,
Deuce and Dempsey,
Hokie Gajan,
Anne Rice whimsy.
Big Will Roaf,
Abramowicz,
Billy Kilmer,
Mayfair witch.
Joe Horn phones,
Manning scrambles,
Handoff to
The Earl of Campbell,
John Hill, Jake Kupp,
Stram’s toupee,
(I think I’ll look
the other way…)
Bum Phillips in his
Cowboy hat,
Grammatic fumbles
Like “Who Dat?!”
Garden District,
Quarter French,
TWO Billy Joes
Come off the bench!
Blasts from the past
Like Rod McNeil.
Can you say,
“Joe Federspiel”?
Zellars, Hilliard,
Mills, Capone,
Did patrolling
In the ’Dome.
Tommy Myers and
Tony G.,
Let’s give them all
A fleur de lis!
“What’s the diff
today?” you ask.
Well, these guys can
Run AND pass
And kick and catch,
Play defense too.
And heaven knows
They’re way past due.
So…
New Orleans/Vikes.
What will it be?
I’ll roll the dice here:
Saints by 3.
-30-
Friday, January 22, 2010
Eye Checkup, I Checkup
At that time Jesus said, `I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these thingsfrom the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure’.""All things have been committed to me by my Father.No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him."
-- Matthew 11:25-26
I was too smart for my own good. I knew the Bible, but I didn’t "know" the Son. I could not know Him, because I didn’t want to. I wanted to know about Him; I wanted an intellectual relationship, not an intimate one.
When I was properly humbled, my heart’s eyes saw differently. Read differently. Searched differently. All I thought I'd known was wrong. God revealed His Word when my heart retired from seeking a diploma and instead started seeking a Savior.
Paul had to be made blind before he could see. When his eyes were opened, he saw the cross. Then all was clear: the cheapness of his world, the darkness of his heart, the fatal nature of faith in self. Once Paul in humility saw the cross, once he "saw" Christ crucified, he never took his eyes off it again.
"Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not-- to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."
1 Corinthians 1: 26-29
*(Speaking of saints, Saints by 3 over Minnesota? You think? Colts bomb Jets by 20. Although I emotionally love the Jets. Have since 1969. I'm just sayin...)
-- Matthew 11:25-26
I was too smart for my own good. I knew the Bible, but I didn’t "know" the Son. I could not know Him, because I didn’t want to. I wanted to know about Him; I wanted an intellectual relationship, not an intimate one.
When I was properly humbled, my heart’s eyes saw differently. Read differently. Searched differently. All I thought I'd known was wrong. God revealed His Word when my heart retired from seeking a diploma and instead started seeking a Savior.
Paul had to be made blind before he could see. When his eyes were opened, he saw the cross. Then all was clear: the cheapness of his world, the darkness of his heart, the fatal nature of faith in self. Once Paul in humility saw the cross, once he "saw" Christ crucified, he never took his eyes off it again.
"Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not-- to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."
1 Corinthians 1: 26-29
*(Speaking of saints, Saints by 3 over Minnesota? You think? Colts bomb Jets by 20. Although I emotionally love the Jets. Have since 1969. I'm just sayin...)
Thursday, January 21, 2010
New Kid In Town
Eating supper Friday on the eve of his 21st birthday, Legalhood, I asked my son Casey, "So, I know you don't know for sure what you're doing five minutes from now, but I'll ask anyway: Got any big plans for tomorrow?"
"Oh," he said, chewing with his month full, "I guess gamble."
Sigh...He's a beautiful human being.
This ran in The Times and The News-Star Sunday.
NEW KID IN TOWN
This weather's been so cold, it really lets you know where your underwear stops.
Do you hear what I'm saying? You smell what I'm stepping in?
Too cold. Might as well live in Minnesota, or some other foreign place.
I had long johns. They didn't help. Had to go buy longer johns.
That said, I put on the biggest coat I own this week and realized something very bittersweet: I miss zipping up my son's jacket.
I can't do that anymore. I could, but he wouldn't appreciate it. My little boy, a guy I taught to tie his shoes, turned 21 this week.
Remember how your children used to walk up to you with their big-boy coats on, their chests stuck out, waiting on you to zip them up?
My guy did that. Looked like a tiny Michelin Man, all hooded and insulated. I'd get on a knee and zip. Sometimes it took only 10 minutes or so.
This guy was born on a rainy Monday, just after noon, a C-section guy. I saw the picture of him at 10 that morning, live, pre-birth. He was sitting up, looking comfortable, chewing on what looked like a cord or a skinny ear of corn. Who knows what was going on in there. He wouldn't turn over, so the doctor just went in and got him.
Have you seen pictures of divers, pictures frozen at the moment that nothing but the diver's head is in the water? That was my first view of Casey Jay Allen. The doctor had him by the ankles, extending him toward her chest, and his head was still inside.
Then his head popped out, she whopped him a couple of times, and we were open for business.
Very strange. A whole brand new person. Didn't know anybody. None of us knew him. But he was here to stay. And so began the escapades and whatnot.
Through the years he's been a joy, a heart ache, a head-scratcher and a smile-maker. "He just did what?"
He's been a Mariner, an Oriole, a Cardinal, a RockHound, a thespian, a fisherman, a physics student, a speech giver, a free-throw shooter, a Ninja turtle, a jacket zipper (eventually), and, once at Halloween, Richard Nixon.
He's been to ballgames, to amusement parks, to funerals, to weddings and to graduations. He's been to the beach, to the mountains, to Sunday school, to grandma's house, to the doctor, to putt-putt, and to the principal's office. His first trip to a hotel, we should have paid rent for the elevator; all we did was ride it, up and down, up and down.
He's been a friend to some wonderful boys and girls, to a couple of dogs, and to Jingle Bell, a cat who was supposed to be a dog and didn't know he wasn't. Good, good guys.
Mumps? Yes. Strep? Yes. Tetnaus shot? Hurt him. Department of Motor Vehicles? Hurt me.
Time does fly. When he was little enough to sneak Popsicles from the icebox and think he was getting away with it, I wondered what he'd look like when he got to be a legal adult.
Now I know.
But to me, part of him will always look like the little boy who couldn't zip a jacket. That's another reason parenting's not for sissies: Our job is to teach our kids to do things without our help, then it's disturbing in a unique sort of way when they actually have the nerve to do it.
Bittersweet. But I'm grateful he's grown up. I'm grateful he's helped me, at least a little bit, do the same thing.
"Oh," he said, chewing with his month full, "I guess gamble."
Sigh...He's a beautiful human being.
This ran in The Times and The News-Star Sunday.
NEW KID IN TOWN
This weather's been so cold, it really lets you know where your underwear stops.
Do you hear what I'm saying? You smell what I'm stepping in?
Too cold. Might as well live in Minnesota, or some other foreign place.
I had long johns. They didn't help. Had to go buy longer johns.
That said, I put on the biggest coat I own this week and realized something very bittersweet: I miss zipping up my son's jacket.
I can't do that anymore. I could, but he wouldn't appreciate it. My little boy, a guy I taught to tie his shoes, turned 21 this week.
Remember how your children used to walk up to you with their big-boy coats on, their chests stuck out, waiting on you to zip them up?
My guy did that. Looked like a tiny Michelin Man, all hooded and insulated. I'd get on a knee and zip. Sometimes it took only 10 minutes or so.
This guy was born on a rainy Monday, just after noon, a C-section guy. I saw the picture of him at 10 that morning, live, pre-birth. He was sitting up, looking comfortable, chewing on what looked like a cord or a skinny ear of corn. Who knows what was going on in there. He wouldn't turn over, so the doctor just went in and got him.
Have you seen pictures of divers, pictures frozen at the moment that nothing but the diver's head is in the water? That was my first view of Casey Jay Allen. The doctor had him by the ankles, extending him toward her chest, and his head was still inside.
Then his head popped out, she whopped him a couple of times, and we were open for business.
Very strange. A whole brand new person. Didn't know anybody. None of us knew him. But he was here to stay. And so began the escapades and whatnot.
Through the years he's been a joy, a heart ache, a head-scratcher and a smile-maker. "He just did what?"
He's been a Mariner, an Oriole, a Cardinal, a RockHound, a thespian, a fisherman, a physics student, a speech giver, a free-throw shooter, a Ninja turtle, a jacket zipper (eventually), and, once at Halloween, Richard Nixon.
He's been to ballgames, to amusement parks, to funerals, to weddings and to graduations. He's been to the beach, to the mountains, to Sunday school, to grandma's house, to the doctor, to putt-putt, and to the principal's office. His first trip to a hotel, we should have paid rent for the elevator; all we did was ride it, up and down, up and down.
He's been a friend to some wonderful boys and girls, to a couple of dogs, and to Jingle Bell, a cat who was supposed to be a dog and didn't know he wasn't. Good, good guys.
Mumps? Yes. Strep? Yes. Tetnaus shot? Hurt him. Department of Motor Vehicles? Hurt me.
Time does fly. When he was little enough to sneak Popsicles from the icebox and think he was getting away with it, I wondered what he'd look like when he got to be a legal adult.
Now I know.
But to me, part of him will always look like the little boy who couldn't zip a jacket. That's another reason parenting's not for sissies: Our job is to teach our kids to do things without our help, then it's disturbing in a unique sort of way when they actually have the nerve to do it.
Bittersweet. But I'm grateful he's grown up. I'm grateful he's helped me, at least a little bit, do the same thing.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
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