Turkey Bowl
November 24, 1983: Muddied combatants pose before heading home for Thanksgiving dinner.
It was a sacred tradition for a number of years, a ritual no less important to its participants than the national holiday on which it occurred. Every Thanksgiving morning at 9:00, a ragtag group of brothers and friends assembled on a frozen field at Robb Park for a spirited game of touch football. Victory with all of its bragging rights was awarded to the first team to score five touchdowns. By that time, great patches of dormant grass would be stripped away, leaving a muddy pit as testimony to the annual battle. Soaked through, sore, and grimier than any other time of the year, the players trudged home to clean up in time for heartily appreciated turkey dinners.
The Turkey Bowl began as a smaller affair, nothing much more than my three older brothers and a few of their friends running some plays on Thanksgiving morning. Things changed when my brother Richard taught 7th and 8th grade math and science at his alma mater, the same Catholic school that I attended.
"I told students I was a tight end at Cal Poly Pomona," acknowledges Richard. "They didn't know any better."
Of Course We’re Going To Riot
Penn State students making their point by destroying property.
You can fire the university president, and you can fire the head football coach. You can fully cooperate with authorities and enact whatever painful, pragmatic measures are necessary to restore respectability to a tarnished institution. But what, Penn State officials must be asking themselves, can be done to reeducate the misguided students who rioted after the announcement of Joe Paterno's termination? While the allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky apparently reveal a systemic failure to properly notify police and child welfare agencies of reported abuses, the destructive behavior of students on Wednesday night is indicative of another ingrained dysfunction.
Many of the young adults quoted in a New York Times account of the incident were disturbingly cavalier and defiant about the violent student reaction to news that their beloved coach had been suddenly and unceremoniously axed. "It's not fair," claimed one of them. "The board is an embarrassment and a disservice to the student population." Note the adolescent egocentrism in that remark. The young man is upset because firing Paterno for failing to fulfill a moral obligation to actively prevent further instances of child abuse impinges on his needs as a student. It's like a bratty kid kicking the fireman because his Halloween candy melted.
The Immortal, Medicinal Marx Brothers
For the uninitiated: Zeppo, Groucho, Chico and Harpo
One hectic spring somewhere in my thirties, I realized that I was coming perilously close to taking myself and everyday life too seriously. Dwelling on chronic annoyances and my inability to remedy them was simply compounding my problems. I was at risk of developing a permanently sour expression. Then I stumbled upon a most unexpected antidote to gloomy self-absorption. While browsing at the library, I found a DVD box set of the first five Marx Brothers movies.
The Marx Brothers were a cultural phenomenon that I had somehow ignored. I knew who Groucho Marx was, of course, and I was aware of Harpo's pantomime shtick, but beyond a rudimentary knowledge of titles and famous routines, I knew almost nothing of their celebrated movies. What was it that made them so appealing to their fans? The box set was an opportunity to eradicate my gnawing ignorance. Anal retentive that I am, I resolved to watch all of the movies in the order by which they were released. It was a course of action that, in hindsight, I would prescribe to anyone who feels weighed down by their burdens.
The Vinyl Frontier
Jim...there's something funny about the walls and floor...
Star Trek or Planet of the Apes? That was the paralyzing decision that I had to make one afternoon in 1975. I stood transfixed before brightly colored boxes, my brow furrowed with the anxious knowledge that whichever option I chose, it would come at the expense of forfeiting the other. Star Trek or Planet of the Apes? Both playsets looked fantastically inviting, especially when accessorized with a quartet of eight-inch action figures. I studied the pictures and tried to envision what exciting scenarios I might be able to create with these tantalizing toys. Did one of the choices offer more hours of fun? Might I grow tired of one of them sooner than I imagined? Did one road lead to sustained happiness, while the other ended in unforeseen regret? My nostrils flared. Star Trek or Planet of the Apes?
My mother and father stood nearby, patiently observing their youngest child's angst. We were standing in a long aisle within the vast establishment known as Children's Palace. The mere sight of its turreted facade had thrilled me to my very capacity for excitement, for I had seen television ads for the store and yearned to visit it like a prospector dreams of El Dorado. In my hometown of Lima, toys were confined to a small department within stores that sold an array of goods. The concept of a big box retailer dealing exclusively in toys was like hearing tell of a swimming pool filled with chocolate milk. Yet here in Columbus, I was standing within a genuine Children's Palace.
A Crown For Every Collar
I grew up believing that the first President of the United States was George Worshington. Oh, I knew it wasn't spelled that way, but that was how I said it. Similarly, I knew my home was equipped with a worsher and dryer, which we used to launder all of our clothes and linen, including the worshcloths. I inherited this peculiar dialectical preference and used it for years without the slightest notion that it was a deviation from standard English. Then one day, in the midst of questioning every other facet of my adolescent existence, I realized that there was no justifiable reason to pronounce wash as worsh, and I was appalled. I had been betrayed by my upbringing, tarred with a rube's tongue, and I vowed to eradicate the vulgarism from my speech at once. It took a few weeks of consciously correcting my bad habit, a learning curve akin to knowing how to use a foreign phrase with the aplomb of a native, but I eventually became forever worsh-free.
The transformation led me to tackle other linguistic abominations as they became apparent to me. I began to enunciate all four syllables of interesting in an effort to combat the gross contraction intresting. I put the first r back into library. I even started adding a g at the end of progressive verbs. Yet I was not a budding usage curmudgeon. I found no pleasure in the superiority of the language police. I simply noticed things that made no sense to me and adjusted my speech accordingly.
Solo Artist
Education Director Jason Hanley interviews Carl Palmer at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"There's lots of things you play when you've got an instrument - whether it be a guitar or piano, or whatever - that you kind of play for yourself; you don't really think of playing it in concert because it's not that type of piece of music," explained Carl Palmer at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum last Saturday afternoon. "Usually drum solos need to be exciting, very direct. In a festival environment, you know, in a concert environment, you can't be too arty about it, you've got to get to the point. And I like to entertain people as well, and I like to make sure if there's any drummers in the room, they know I can play."
Explosive laughter resounded throughout the intimate Foster Theater at that last remark. Fewer than 200 lucky fans had just enjoyed the U.S. premiere of The Solo, a 35-minute art film featuring the legendary drummer doing what he does best. If his accomplished career with Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Asia were not sufficient evidence of his extraordinary talent, The Solo showcases Carl Palmer's abilities as never before.
Two Chairs, No Waiting
My wife and I bought our house nearly twenty years ago. It's a small two-story built by an outfit that kept prices affordable by using the cheapest materials allowed by housing codes. We've made some significant quality upgrades over the last two decades, installing a durable roof, buying a better furnace, replacing every window and door, and encasing our home in vinyl siding. Incredibly, however, we are still using the original, economy-grade water heater. Aware that our basement houses an aquatic time bomb that could blow at any time, perhaps leaving us without hot water on an arctic January morning, we decided to be proactive and solicit some replacement estimates.
"Now, I'm guessin' here," boomed a garrulous contractor as he surveyed our basement, "that you guys have two and a half bathrooms?"
Guess again. My wife and I traded smiles provoked by the perverse joy that comes with puncturing false assumptions. "One," I corrected him. He was clearly taken aback by this information, as though we had revealed that we do all of our cooking over a boiling cauldron in the fireplace. Yet we spoke the truth. It is the secret shame of modern suburbia. You can't tell just by driving through the neighborhood, but there exists here and there the odd house that has...[insert dramatic sting here]...only one toilet.
Con Market…Manet Cork…Knot Cream…
The human brain, that incessant maker of meaning and perceiver of patterns, is wont to seek engagement rather than endure monotony. Even when there is little at hand to provide mental stimulation, the mind will resourcefully make do with whatever it finds. I am reminded of a particular instance of this phenomenon that occurred, of all places, high in the balcony seating of a sold-out pop concert.
We had been enjoying an entertaining set by Elton John, who was touring to promote his 2004 release, Peachtree Road. It was a great and engrossing performance until we heard the opening lyric, "She packed my bags last night, pre-flight." The audience responded predictably, greeting Rocket Man with a resounding ovation, but we were less than thrilled. Having seen Sir Elton a few times before, we knew that he had just embarked on a journey that would, indeed, last "a long, long time."
That’s Right, I Said “Autumnal”
I have just become aware of a popular trend in seasonal nomenclature that threatens to upend millennia of tradition and, more importantly, thumbs its nose at my personal preference. It concerns the term by which we ought to refer to today's astronomical event, when the center of the sun can be seen to pass directly overhead (90° off the horizon) as observed at the equator, thus signaling a change of season. It is my habit to call this occurrence the Autumnal Equinox. I also accept the use of Fall Equinox, inasmuch as autumn and fall are synonyms. However, there is a movement afoot to hereby replace those cherished monikers with September Equinox.
This is apparently the term that is preferred by many astronomers and other scientists, and in that particular regard, it is a reasonable replacement, for it is more precise. After all, one hemisphere's Autumnal Equinox is another hemisphere's Vernal Equinox, and scientific terminology demands the absence of ambiguity. Fair enough. You scientists may exercise your right to specificity, and I may carry on using a name that works for me and everyone else in the Northern Hemisphere. But do a little poking around on the Internet, and you'll find some members of the lay public adopting September Equinox for a totally different reason.
Everybody Clap Your Hands
There is a celebrity educator renowned among teachers for his bestselling books and the extraordinary commitment he has made to fostering the success of disadvantaged students. His achievements and advice are laudable, as is his practice of funding his school with the honorariums he earns as a popular speaker. Anyone would be thrilled to have him looking after the learning of their child. And yet, despite my admiration for all that he has done for children and teachers alike, there is one quirky aspect of his personality that makes me cringe. He is known for spontaneously mounting desks and tables and proceeding to dance.
Now, I have nothing against people dancing. For all I care, the whole of my community can shimmy about as a choreographed flash mob the next time I'm out and about town. I will smile charitably and perhaps even enjoy the display. Just don't ask me to boogie along. Primal as the urge to dance supposedly is, I have never felt the compulsion to bust a move. Just the opposite, in fact. Never am I happier to remain seated than when a group of revelers is dancing. My reluctance to dance is little different than, say, your dismissal of foods you do not like. It's just not for me. I simply do not enjoy it.
But the dancing celebrity educator sees it differently. Not only does he literally put himself on a pedestal and shake his groove thing, he expects everyone else to follow his lead. Whether he is addressing his student body or a convention hall full of teachers, he expects every last soul to clap along.