Pumpkins

When I was little, I remember waking up early and going to a place that had pumpkins. It was cold outside and the dew was heavy. There was a big selection of pumpkins and eventually, my brother and sisters joined me in picking out their perfect pumpkin. We took them home and carved them and put candles in them. Halloween would come and go and so would the pumpkins.

We woke up to the sight of our pumpkins smashed in the road. Oh the humanity! Some of our pumpkins were too heavy to pick up so they apparently were rolled and kicked into oblivion. What a strange thing to do, smash pumpkins...

Like a ritual handed down from generation to generation, kids all over America sneak around and smash childhood masterpieces. The streets are filled with pumpkin seeds...

I too am guilty. One impressionable year, I took out an entire family's pumpkins all in a row, one at a time. The thing was the people actually were staring at me through the screen door as I hoisted up the last victim. What was I thinking?

It was stupid. There was no reason to do it. If my parents had been aware and more involved in my life, hopefully they would have made me go back to that house and apologize. Then, they would have made me clean up the mess. Finally, I would have had to pay for the smashed pumpkins. Wow, do I sound like an adult now or what?

One year, we were responsible enough to make sure the candle in someones pumpkin didn't catch the victim's bushes on fire. Senseless violence... We also thought shaving cream, eggs, and toilet paper were "fun" things to do.

Another Halloween, my brother actually told a lawyer friend of his that we were going to egg his house. We did. The lawyer friend came over to our house the next day and made us clean it up. Good for him. What in the heck was my brother thinking? He was older and suppose to set an example.

I remember the year that my older brother and older friend decided that Halloween no longer consisted of these activities. I was dumbfounded. Isn't that what you did on Halloween?

As I grew older and became an adult, some kids actually came into our house in Texas to help themselves to the candy we were handing out. I chased them, but they got away. They came back though and egged our house. I chased them again, barefoot on the asphalt street, and this time I caught one of them. The kid that I caught denied doing anything even though he still had the carton of eggs on him! It was then that I "got it". This kid was me, smashing the pumpkins on those people's porch...

When you get what you deserve, that's justice. When don't get all that you deserve, that's mercy. And when you don't get what you deserve, that's grace.

So, today when we go out to the farm to pick our pumpkins, I will reflect on the privileges and mistakes of my youth. I will remember the excitement of finding the perfect pumpkin, carving it, and watching it glow in the autumn night. And I will remember that the mischief of Halloween and my youth can be forgiven and maybe even learned from.

Alert the Media

A song from my youth goes "Up, up and away...my beautiful, my beautiful...balloon..."

Today in Fort Collins, Colorado, a home made weather balloon got loose and took off from a homeowners backyard. It soared to heights of nearly 8,000 feet and sailed along unencumbered for more than 2 hours before finally coming down in a farmers field some 50 miles away. So?

Well, the story is this weather balloon was supposedly being piloted by a 6 year-old boy, who was unfortunately on board when it broke loose and took off into the wild blue yonder.

Alert the National Guard, they did. Reroute flights out of Denver International Airport, they did. Call every search and rescue volunteer in the state, they did. Alert all the hospitals and medical staff, boys, we got ourselves a broken arrow!

A 10 year-old boy told us so. He saw his brother on board when it broke loose and well, he's gone. Gasp! 4 hours of non-stop media coverage. Military helicopters with infrared scanners. Heck, I even went out back to check the greenbelt to see if it had a 6 year-old kid in it.

But wait, newsflash, the boy has been found. He is safe. He was hiding in his own home? A home that had been checked twice by authorities? The clever little guy had been hiding in a box up in the rafters of his attic. Seriously?

The media had gone into a feeding frenzy just hours before. Genuinely concerned citizens spent the afternoon searching for the poor little 6 year-old who was cast away on his dad's weather balloon. Will he be found, alive?

Let's get this straight. The only witness that "saw" the 6 year-old get kidnapped into the sky was his 10 year-old brother?

My wife said the kid is probably hiding. He was. In the post game news conference, the parents looked like they were holding a press conference discussing Al Gore's global warming. It was surreal. It looked like those stories we see of the press interviewing witnesses to the crime that in the end were the criminals themselves.

What was lost in all of this was the path that the weather balloon took today was the Windsor tornado of 2008 in reverse. The resemblance is uncanny. The damage almost as great. That tornado started approximately 50 miles to the southeast of Fort Collins and tracked in a northwesterly direction. This balloon took off in Fort Collins and traveled approximately 50 miles in a southeasterly direction before being harpooned by authorities in a farmers field.

In the end, the flying silver mushroom had been brought down by a guy with a shovel. We should have used that shovel to dig out from all the manure that was being spewed from the media. Eyewitnesses said they saw a dark spot on the bottom of the airborne balloon, presumably the small boy's body inside. Others saw something fall from the balloon into a field. And psychics were weighing in from all over the country on the boys exact gps coordinates.

Letting your imagination carry you away to create news and widespread panic is as responsible and reckless as a 6 year-old boy being swept up into the sky and ultimately found clinging to the rafters of his own attic.

I say give a Nobel Peace Prize to the 6 year-old boy for not being in that balloon. After all, the story was unfounded and the kid didn't really do anything. The media thought he did and folks that's what's real.

Chasing Rainbows

Last week when President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, the overwhelming response was “For what?” Last night, when the Rockies lost, the response was “What happened?” Where did the magic of Rocktober go?

In sports, win or lose, life goes on. Strange isn’t it that fans get so attached to something they cannot control? In the end, a team won or lost, not you. Maybe we feel like our life will be different if the team wins. We might have a party to celebrate or have a party to enjoy the game, but are we really enjoying it?

My wife has asked me many times why I even watch sports. She says I do not enjoy them. She says I agonize over them. I hold players and teams to impossible standards that can’t possibly be met. After all, these are games played by imperfect human beings. A name on a jersey is not going to change that. It is a game, a competition, not life or death.

It does make you feel good when your team wins. But what makes sports fun? Why do we continue to play them and/or watch them? Is it all about winning? Are we wired to compete? And if so, are we really trying to recreate a feeling that cannot be recreated? When you look at a river, you see water flowing. While it looks the same, the water is different all the time. Sports are like that with each season flowing by.

In sports, maybe we are trying to recreate the moment? Imagine trying to recreate the 1980 Olympic men’s hockey team moment –“Do you believe in miracles? YES!!!” Hollywood did a pretty good job in the movie Miracle, but in the end they had to go back to the original call to give you the chills all over again.

Sports fans are always searching for that high, that adrenalin rush that is very rare. Your team wins the Super Bowl, The World Series, or the National Championship. In the end, it is like chasing rainbows that fade away with the setting sun. Maybe it just gives us hope of what is possible. Maybe sports remind us of our ability to capture time for a brief moment and remember when we won.

The Rivalry

While I was attending Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois back in October of 1981, a friend and I took a little road trip. We drove to St. Louis in a car that was leaking oil so badly that we had to stop every so often and pour in a can of oil just to keep it running. We made it to St. Louis, but that was not our destination. This road trip included a flight to Dallas where we were going to spend the weekend with another friend of mine at Southern Methodist University. The things college kids do...

My friend in Dallas was attending SMU and was in a fraternity. I remember hanging out at the frat house on Saturday morning wondering what the big deal was about the game everybody was watching, Texas vs. Oklahoma. Apparently this game was not just another game. I picked up on the fact that you were either a Longhorn or a Sooner and that this rivalry was passed on from generation to generation. Families had been split on this border war similar to those in the civil war, which by the way is still going on in the minds of the confederates down south. Hello, a Yankee is now a baseball player, get over it.

The game that day was not going well if you were a Texas fan. Oklahoma was leading at halftime 14-3. I remember that there were all of these fumbles in the 2nd half that turned the game around for Texas who eventually won going away 34-14. Little did I know at the time that not only would I be back in Dallas the following year, but I would be a student at The University of Texas and I would be attending the game as well.

My new roommates and I sat in the upper deck in the Cotton Bowl that next October and watched the Longhorns lose to the Sooners 28-22. I was devastated. As I walked out of the stadium, a rather large Sooner fan walked up to me and said he'd give me nickle for my Texas t-shirt. I was not a happy camper.

We stayed with my friend at SMU again that year. We all slept on the floor in his room. SMU was pretty good that year, so we were given a hard time about losing to OU and that SMU was going to beat UT as well. We left town humbled, but not before we pasted our "Beat the Hell outta OU" sticker on one of the frat boys cars as we sheepishly headed back to Austin.

SMU with Craig James and hall of famer Eric Dickerson did beat Texas that year. Another humbling loss. Texas was in position to make a big comeback in that game when a pass deflected out of Jitter Fields' hands into an SMU player's arms and he ran untouched for a touchdown. ESPN analyst Craig James would later seal the deal with an easy touchdown catch off a fake run in the end zone where I was sitting.

Losing to an opponent creates a rivalry. An Indian judges his greatness on how mighty his enemies may be. Those losses are remembered far more than the wins. The next season, I got great seats on the 45 yard line for the OU game and Texas won 28-16. I got the VHS tape of the game for Christmas that year. It was and is that important.

Texas and Oklahoma have played 104 times with Texas holding a 58-40 advantage in the win column. But as much as that matters overall, it means nothing when the two teams get together one Saturday a year at the State Fair of Texas in the Cotton Bowl to renew the Red River Shootout. Records and ranking mean nothing. So, this coming Saturday, as they say, get ready to rumble. Sayings like: "Better Dead than Sooner Red" and "OU SUCKS" will ring out in Dallas. I am nervous...once again.

The Deer Slayer

My hometown is Northbrook, Illinois. Northbrook is located about 20 miles north of Chicago and about 4 miles to the west of Lake Michigan. I grew up with 80 acres of woods across the street. It is officially a county forest preserve, but to us it was just "the woods".

The woods were ours. Oh sure there were big wooden signs proclaiming that they belonged to the citizens of Cook County, but in reality we owned them. My childhood friends and I oversaw this wild place. We knew every square inch and spent a great deal of our time as kids playing there.

These woods were my introduction to nature. They were a place of big oak trees, ponds, marshes, and open prairies. The wildlife living there included deer, raccoons, and frogs. Some of the large oak trees had been there for hundreds of years. The rest of our wilderness apparently was farm land just 40 years or so before my friends and I arrived on the scene.

The place now is called Somme Prairie Grove. It is an intensely managed conservation area. Brush cutting parties, weeding, seeding, and controlled burns are the activities of the day. There are now maps of the area with history attached to them. One of the history tales is of an infamous deer slayer who hid in a perch in an old oak tree waiting to bag his trophy buck. They discovered the remnants of his tree stand when their mission of conservation began back in the 1990's. It is a fascinating myth. How do I know?

My friend and I carried the 2x4's out there to those two oaks and built a triangle viewing perch in adjacent trees high above the woods floor. There we surveyed our kingdom until we grew tired of our woods and moved on to other things that teenagers like to do. I went back and took down my perch, but my friend, the deer slayer, left his up for the historians to find, years later... and wonder.

Our National Parks

I have been watching public television lately. A series on National Parks by Ken Burns has been on. It is fascinating. The idea that these National Parks belong to all Americans is remarkable. It has got me thinking and when I do that I usually want to record my thoughts in some sort of order to help me understand how they came to be in the first place, my thoughts that is.

The first National Park I ever went to was Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee. The Smokies were the first mountains I ever saw. I was 17 years old. The Smokies were aptly named. They were forested with a blueish haze on them and adventure awaited as an end of high school backpack trip beckoned. That trip didn't go so well.

The next time I saw a National Park was from above as I flew into Jackson Hole just after my 30th birthday. As I strained to see the Teton Mountains out the plane window, suddenly the white clouds opened as we were circling to land and I saw these mountains for the first time. They were green and brown with splashes of white. They looked like an emerald city bunt cake. I was in awe. This visit to Grand Teton National Park was to be a celebration of my 30th year on earth. Ironically, it was to be another backpack trip, as I saw it, to mark time.

The next year, I visited Mount Rainier National Park and saw Tahoma, the mountain that walks, first hand. A few years later, I went hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, the park that I have spent the most time in by far since moving out west in 1999. Mountains seem to be the central theme here. A kid from Illinois either likes the flat or craves to go places with a little topography. I guess I am the latter.

Our National Parks have drawn me like a moth to a flame. I have seen Yellowstone National Park as a passenger on a motorcycle and I have looked down into the abyss that is Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. I am indebted to the visionaries responsible for preserving these natural areas. They have provided me the opportunity to experience these natural wonders in this country we call home.

Rocktober

Rocktober? What is that?

Let's see, in college there was an Octokerfest...no that's not it.
Octoberfest? Let's see, beer drinking German style in September and October? No, not quite.

Rocktober is a term coined 2 years ago when the Colorado Rockies stormed into the playoffs and made it all the way to the World Series. What? The Rockies made it to the World Series?

I grew up in Chicago. I am a Cubs fan. You know what it is to suffer as a sports fan if you are a Cubs fan. You believe in hexes. You dream of the day the Cubs play in and win the World Series. The year that happens will be the biggest day in sports history for the city of Chicago bar none, Olympics included.

Here in Colorado, we have been close. The miracle season of 2007 is just 2 years old. The Rockies won 21 of their last 22 games that year. I'll restate that, the Rockies went 21-1 in their last 22 games. They won 14 in a row, lost a game, and then went on to win their next 7 to end the season. Still, they needed the San Diego Padres to lose their last game to force a 1 game playoff.

I remember it didn't look good. The Padres were winning. One of the games best closers, Trevor Hoffman, was in their game to finish off the Milwaukee Brewers. They were 1 strike away from winning and ending the Rockies season. Then it happened. Tony Gwinn Jr. of the Brewers hit the ball. He stroked a game tieing triple and the Brewers went on to win the game.

I was driving home from the mountains at the time and was listening to the Rockies game on the radio. There was a huge roar from the crowd in Coors Field in Colorado as the score was posted. The Rockies had life and they capitalized on it. They won and kept on winning.

They won the play-in game against the hard luck Padres with a trilling, come from behind, extra inning, head first slide into home plate. They swept the next 3 games from the Philadelphia Phillies. They swept the next 4 games from the Arizona Diamond Backs. They made it to the World Series.

Unfortunately, the Rockies run was so fast that they had to wait for the American League representative like the rabbit waiting at the finish line for the turtle. 9 days off was just too much to overcome for the Rockies and the Boston Red Sox swept the magic away, until this season...

The Rockies can clinch a playoff spot today...the Rockies. Rocktober is here!