Tag: nostalgia (Page 1 of 6)

An Univited Ghost

December 7, 2020 / DB

One of the greatest things about the Internet is the ability to dive into your past, to try to clarify memories that have become hazy over time or reconnect with people who were once an integral part of your life.

I don’t do a whole lot of biographical scrolling these days. It’s been years since I’ve looked up an ex-girlfriend or classmate. The closest I’ve come is a couple years back when I spent a few winter nights in Google maps working to find the various houses of my youth.

That changed this Sunday. I was reading an appreciation for the legendary Eric B and Rakim album Paid in Full. As I read, I was reminded of how I came to know and love that album.

It was in the late summer/early fall of 1987, during my family’s year in California. There was a Sunday afternoon hip hop show on the Stanford student radio station, which I could just barely pick up from our suburb near Oakland. In fact, in order to record the show for re-listening, I had to use my stepdad’s 1970s radio and run a patch cord to my old-school cassette tape recorder. Thus, for the next week I would listen to a very hissy, low volume, MONO tape to review these new songs and artists. At some point, I heard an Eric B and Rakim song on that show, which led me to buy their album, and it became one of my favorites ever.

Along with that was the story of how a classmate borrowed my tape to make a copy and then kept forgetting to return it. Finally, during my final week at San Leandro High School, my friend got a delivery from the office. Moments later he handed me my tape.[1]

It had been a long, long time since I thought of my year at SLHS. In some ways that time was incredibly influential on the next few years of my life. In others, it was just a year that was a quick pause from how the other 48 years have gone. After returning to Kansas City, I tried to write letters to a few of the people I had befriended out there, but I don’t think any ever wrote me back. Once, while on a business trip to the Bay Area in the early 2000s, I was staying a couple exits away from my old neighborhood. After a dinner with clients, I made a quick cruise down the street we lived on. But by the time things like Facebook came on the scene, it was far too late to attempt to track anyone from those days down.

Until yesterday. Reading the Paid in Full article and having those memories made me wonder what happened to the people I had struck brief friendships with. I did some searching for the one or two names I could definitively recall and eventually found a page dedicated to the SLHS graduating class of 1989. The site appears to have been put together at least 12 years ago, in preparation for the class’ 20th reunion. Three hundred and seventeen names were listed. I scrolled through them and was humbled by how few I could recall. I moved back to Missouri 33 years ago and was only at the school for 11 months, but it still felt like more names should jump out at me.

When I attempted to click on the profile of the few names I recognized, I was informed that I had to be a registered user to access profiles and contact information. For a moment I wondered if I could request access from the administrators, explaining that I had been a part of that class for a year, and see if they would allow me in. Although quite old, there are little signs that the site has been updated in recent years. I don’t know how many people still look at it, but might it be worth sending a message and saying, “Hey, I was with you from January through November 1987, anyone remember me?”

Beyond not recognizing very many names, what also jumped out at me was how 20 people in the class were listed as deceased. The class of 1989 is beginning to turn 50, so that number is probably right about where it should be. It still felt high to me. I checked with one of my friends from RHS and he said the latest total showed 17 of our 330-ish classmates have passed.

I clicked on the biographies of all the SLHS alums who were listed as deceased. For most there were recreations of obituaries, or at least comments that provided the cause of death. There were a lot of cancer victims. A couple car accidents, one just a few weeks after they had graduated. Two guys were stabbed to death. There were a lot of suicides, including one of the few people I remembered. It was a guy, Todd, who was in a couple of my classes. I remembered his name well because one day, in May of 1987, our teacher asked him why he looked so tired. He said a bunch of kids had quit at the golf course he worked at and he had to work late the previous night.

A lightbulb went off. We lived right around the corner from that golf course and my summer plan had been to get a job there. That afternoon, as soon as my parents were home, I ran over to the course, introduced myself at the pro shop, filled out some forms, and that night was helping to pick the range. That was my first job. I worked there until the week before we returned to the Midwest in November. Those six—ish months were filled with good times, eye opening experiences, and went a long way towards building my love of hip hop as my coworkers and I swapped tapes to listen to on our Walkmen while we cleared the range at night.

Todd killed himself in 1996. There were several comments under his name, but none gave any hint as to what he was going through that led him to take his own life. I tried not to think too much about that. Instead I recalled a night when we took two girls we worked with to the park that sat between the golf course and the San Francisco Bay. I was interested in one girl, and she flirted with me often. But she went off into the darkness of the park with Todd, and I was left with her friend who I had no particular attraction to and who seemed equally uninterested in me. If it had been 25 years later, we would have sat there staring at our phones. But it was 1987 so we sat on a park bench in awkward silence, wondering how long it would take our friends to go however far they were going to go in the trees.

It was very strange to jump into this little rabbit hole from my past. Strange not because of the memories it brought back, but because I felt like a stranger dropping in on someone else’s past. It’s not like I went to SLHS for several years, or grew up in middle school with this class and then left. I was there for less than a year, struggled to make friends, and the people I did know didn’t seem interested in staying in touch with me after I left. I was a blip in their high school years, buried by over 30 years of life. If I was able to connect with that group, I would feel like an outsider infringing on their private area. I had not earned the right, in my brief time there, to jump back into their community.

I wrote about this episode in the early days of the blog. I remembered a few more details about it back then. ↩

Breaking Packs

May 7, 2020 / DB

It is so sad what has happened to Sports Illustrated over the past decade. SI was required reading for people my age who were into sports for most of our young lives. When I was a kid, Thursdays were the best day of the year because that’s when the new issue of SI would usually land in the mailbox. The magazine was full of great game stories, features on the most interesting athletes in the world, and usually one long-form piece that you would want to read again as soon as you finished it.

The slow death of print media that began in the late ‘00s was devastating to SI. They lost great writers to other platforms. The copies got thinner every few months. They tried to do the internet thing, without much success. They did the proverbial “Pivot to Video” and that didn’t work. I gave up and dropped my subscription sometime in the early ‘10s.

Recently they were bought out by a notorious firm that is known for ripping up old media entities to squeeze as many dollars out of their husks as possible before they cast them aside. My last friend who I know still had a subscription just let his run out.

I came across this article last weekend. It’s good to see SI can still do some cool stuff.

How the Internet Created a Sports-Card Boom—and Why the Pandemic Is Fueling It

I do not get the concept of “breaking” in the baseball card world. But I think it is cool that it is getting people interested in cards again. I have a big plastic tote filled with my old cards in our basement. Maybe Breaking will make them worth something again.

Old School Gaming

April 6, 2020 / DB

It should be national championship night. Maybe KU would be playing tonight in the school’s ninth title game seeking their fourth NCAA title. The Chicago Tribune ran a simulation and had the Jayhawks beating Michigan State tonight to indeed grab the 2020 nets. USA Today had KU beating Dayton on a buzzer-beating shot.

Alas, there was no tournament this year so we’ll never know if Dot, Dok, Marcus and company could have won four to six games to hang another banner in Allen Fieldhouse.

With the lack of a Final Four this weekend, I reached back to my past to rediscover one of the most beloved teams of my life: the 1988 Jayhawks. I watched the Elite Eight game against Kansas State, the national semifinal game against Duke, and the title game against Oklahoma. Thank goodness for YouTube!

My memories of that 1988 tournament run are, naturally, some of my favorites ever. But it had been awhile since I watched any of these games. Back in the day I watched them often, the tapes of them some of my most sacred possessions. So reviewing the YouTube videos quickly shook free memories that had been gathering dust for years and years. I sensed when big moments were coming, I remembered exact phrases the announcers used.

That ’88 KU squad was about as star-crossed a team as you will ever find. They seemingly couldn’t get a break in the regular season, losing six players to injury, grades, or other issues. Larry Brown had to recruit two football players just to have enough bodies for practice. They lost five of six games and were hoping to end Danny Manning’s career with an NIT home game.

Then, following a 21–11 regular season, KU got every break possible in the NCAA Tournament.

First round opponent Xavier badmouthed host city Lincoln, NE and Manning. The Jayhawks waxed the Musketeers by 13 to open the tournament. Instead of #3 seed NC State, which featured seven players who got NBA minutes, KU faced Murray State in the second round and survived by three to advance to the Sweet 16.

Waiting for them was #7 seed Vanderbilt who had upset the big, physical #2 seed Pittsburgh. Manning abused Will Perdue for 38 points and it was onto the Elite 8 where in-state rival K-State was waiting after knocking off top-seed Purdue. This was likely the greatest team in Purdue history – Troy Lewis, Todd Mitchell, Everette Stephens, and Melvin McCants gave the Boilermakers four studs – and KU would have had no chance against them. In the regional championship game, K-State controlled the game for large stretches of the first 32 minutes until a KU run gave them control and they cruised to a 13-point win. Scooter Barry played the game of his life on a day when Mitch Richmond was harassed by KU’s stifling defense.

Improbably it was back to Kansas City for the 50th Final Four and a meeting with Duke, who had beaten the Jayhawks a month earlier in Lawrence. KU jumped out early, leading 14–0 and 26–4.[1] Duke came roaring back. A three-point shot that could have turned it into a two-point game spun out with about 4:00 left, and Duke never got closer than four after that.

Somehow KU would be playing for the national title. They would take on Oklahoma, who had beaten them twice by eight points in the regular season. That OU team was loaded. Harvey Grant was a first team All Big 8 player on the greatest All Big 8 team of all time: Manning, Grant, Mitch Richmond, Derrick Chievous, and Jeff Grayer. OU also had Stacey King, who would be the 1989 Big 8 player of the year and Mookie Blaylock, one of the greatest defensive guards to ever play in the Big 8. The Sooners had lost just three times, scoring over 100 points an amazing 20 times.

KU famously ran with the Sooners for the first half, 20 minutes of gorgeous basketball than ended in a 50-all tie. The second half was more deliberate, and the teams traded leads until KU stretched out a lead in the closing five minutes. A massive, last second, flip-it-and-hope shot by Chris Piper splashed through as the shot clock expired at the 4:00 mark and KU was up by six. Kemper Arena was a madhouse, sounding more like a game in Lawrence than in a “neutral” setting.

KU closed poorly, though. Manning took two-straight poor, rushed shots that missed.[2] KU missed three of four free throws. Blaylock stole an inbounds pass. But Oklahoma could not take advantage. They got the lead down to two points once, but Scooter Barry and Manning closed the game hitting five of six free throws to clinch the title. Oklahoma, a team with three NBA first round picks, had lost to Manning and a bunch of spare parts. Milt Newton took terrible shots all weekend that all seemed to crawl in. He went 6–6 in the title game. Clint Normore, one of the football players, played 16 minutes, scored seven points, and was also perfect from the field. Piper, a Lawrence High School product who was playing injured, scored eight points and had seven rebounds, which would have tied for a team-best on Oklahoma.

And Manning. Good grief! In one of the greatest title game performance ever, he scored 31, grabbed 18 rebounds, had five steals, two blocks, and two assists.

Danny and the Miracles indeed.

So many feelings went through me watching these games. Manning was so freaking good. He’s the alpha KU player of my life, the clear #1 player in modern program history. But without seeing him in action for so long I forgot how insanely good he was. He had that quick, unstoppable jump hook. When I used to play a lot of pickup ball I tried to mimic Drew Gooden’s jump hook. Gooden’s shot was great, but it was nowhere near Manning’s shot. Manning could pass, flipping quick passes through gaps in the defense. He could dribble pretty well for his size and relative to his era. He was a strong rebounder. He could block shots. What really stuck out, though, was how he was so fundamentally sound and relied on that and not great athleticism to get the job done. He was fast, he was a decent jumper. But KU has had 30 big men who were more athletically impressive than Manning. He was miles beyond anyone else when it came to the basic skills of the game.

Larry Brown coached a perfect game. On a team that had lost most of its depth, he found a way to get decent minutes out of four bench players. He adjusted his offense throughout the night, always a step-ahead of Billy Tubbs. And for a coach known for mentally wearing down his players, he pulled every correct string to get a team that had no business playing for a national title to believe they were the best team on the court that night.

I remember that night, April 4, 1988, vividly. I trust as long as I am alive I will. I realized while watching these grainy copies of old VHS tapes on YouTube how long ago these games were. They were 32 years ago! It is crazy how moments like this, about sports, can stick with you forever.

The 2008 was the greatest KU team ever. But the 1988 team will always be my favorite.

In the game in Lawrence KU lead 28–6 before losing in overtime. ↩
On of my favorite images from the game came during a timeout shortly after Manning’s second miss. As he walked to the bench, Brown walked toward him, smile on his face, pressing his palms down, saying “Calm down! Calm down!” Manning returned Brown’s smile. I love that. You can see that Manning, the best player in college that year, was amped up knowing he was moments away from a national title. It was such a human and authentic moment. ↩

March Memories

March 23, 2020 / DB

Kudos to ESPN and CBS for dropping some classic college basketball games on us to help pass time. I’ve recorded every KU game that has been on so far. I’ve watched a few minutes of the triple overtime Oklahoma game from 2016 and the 2007 Big 12 tournament championship game. In anticipation of Sunday’s airing of the 2008 national championship game, I fired up the YouTubes Saturday and watched that year’s national semifinal against North Carolina.

This was time well spent.

The Carolina game was such an emotionally pleasing game, running the Tarheels out of the arena for the first 12 minutes of the game, at one point leading by 28 points and eliciting Billy Packer’s classic, “This game is ovah!” line. I remember running around my house during commercial breaks that night, wound up by Bill Self getting over on Roy Williams.

Until KU got sloppy, Carolina strung some buckets together, and made a run before halftime. An early second half surge pushed the lead out again until the script completely flipped and UNC went on a huge run, getting as close as four points until a final KU push stretched it out to an 18-point win. I recall getting pretty puckered up when it looked like KU might blow a nearly 30-point lead in the Final Four.

KU looked soooooo fast in that game. Carolina was supposed to be the quickest team in the country and KU made them look slow. ACC media bias exposed. KU manhandled Tyler Hansbrough inside. Other than his flopping, which drew four fouls on the night, he was mostly shut down.

Ah, the ’08 title game. I remember that day very well as I came down with a bug and spent most of the day in bed. I tried to eat dinner but could not, returning to bed and hoping I could rally in time for the game. Which, I did, kind of. I spent the entire game lying on the couch, sometimes watching with my head sideways on a pillow, putting the pillow over my head during breaks. The last 2:12 of regulation and overtime are legendary, but I really don’t remember much of the actual game since I was kind of out of it.

What a great game, though. Those were two very well-matched teams, and they took turns making runs at each other, making life miserable with attacking defenses on both ends, athletic big men battling inside, and two great coaches matches wits on the benches. Derrick Rose’s banked-in shot at the 4:00 mark was initially ruled a three, but changed to a two after a review at the next time out. That was a new rule that year. In 2007 Memphis might win the game by that point, although with four minutes left you never know how things would have worked out.

As well as I remember the end of that game, there were some huge moments I had forgotten. Sherron Collins had a chance to tie the game with about 20 seconds left on a breakaway layup that was swallowed up by two defenders. Sherron, again, absolutely wiped out in front of the Memphis bench late in overtime, giving the Tigers back the ball.

A bad moment I never forgot was Darrell Arthur getting beat for a rebound after Chris Douglas-Roberts missed a free throw with about 16 seconds left. Shady had an incredible game, going for 20 and 10. If not for Mario’s shot, he may well have been named Final Four MOP and it would be his jersey and not Mario’s hanging from the rafters in Allen Fieldhouse. But, man, he got worked over by Robert Dozier on that rebound, giving Memphis two more free throws. Derrick Rose could hit just one, setting up Mario’s shot. I remember almost passing out I was so angry in that moment in 2008. I nearly passed out again moments later when Sherron avoided a foul and losing the ball to shovel it to Mario for the biggest shot in KU history.

Arthur kind of gets lost in KU history. He’s remembered as a really good player on a title team that has had four other players’ jerseys retired. I think most people forget how freaking good he was because that whole team was so good.[1] So athletic, so fast, so skilled, so versatile. He’s the guy on that team who it is most surprising he never did much consistently in the NBA. He always had little moments like that rebound where he made you crazy. But it was also his 19-foot shot that started the last comeback. He hit three other ridiculous shots in the game.

While watching I texted friends that he would have been the Big 12 POY had he come back for his junior year. Maybe his presence is enough so that KU doesn’t blow that 13-point lead in the Sweet 16 against Michigan State. Maybe with him KU is back in the Final Four in 2009. But had he returned, I doubt KU would have gotten the Morris twins, which changes the 2010 and 2011 seasons significantly. It’s always interesting and maddening to consider these What Ifs.

Speaking of What Ifs, seeing how damn good that game was, how good both teams were, got me thinking about those tiny margins that change history. If Mario misses, if Derrick’s “three” had counted, if CDR hit one more free throw, or if one of those tough Arthur shots had rimmed out, how do KU fans view that team? I suppose it all depends on what happened the next few years. Would Sherron not have gotten fat if he hadn’t won a title as a sophomore and he gets KU to two more Final Fours, winning one? If Mario misses his shot, does he come back for his senior year and pair with skinny Sherron to be a ridiculously good backcourt? If Mario comes back, Tyshawn Taylor doesn’t come to KU… You can make yourself crazy going through all the possibilities.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to watch those games. I also watched parts of two of the Saturday replays, the 1982 and 1983 national title games. Both were classics. It was so strange seeing the court in 1982 without the three-point line. Weirder was the court in New Mexico in 1982 which had a three-point line, but since that was not an official NCAA rule yet, shots beyond the arc were still two pointers. Some other assorted thoughts from those games:

I loved Georgetown and Patrick Ewing back then. I was so disappointed when they lost to North Carolina. A decade later I would be rooting hard for Michael Jordan to beat Ewing’s Knicks in the playoffs every year.
Basketball in domes has come a long way, but the setup in the Superdome in ’82 was pretty rough.
It still makes no sense how North Carolina State won the ’83 title. Houston was so much better than them, and had complete control of the game fairly late. Like Memphis in 2008, though, they couldn’t hit free throws.
So much fun watching Ewing, Jordan, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Clyde Drexler, and “Akeem Abdul” Olajuwon in college again. Those were the glory years for talent in the college game, and I ate that shit up when I was a kid.
It was always easy to hate Billy Packer. But he was awfully good at identifying things that were going on inside a game. Unlike Dick Vitale, he generally kept his focus on the game in front of him. His downfall was his love of the ACC, his desire to prove how much he knew, and his tendency to raise his voice a little too much, too often. He also loved to point out what he thought were missed traveling calls. “OHHH HE GOT AWAY WITH A DOUBLE-DRIBBLE THERE!” Every game I watched this weekend he would yell shit like that multiple times.

It sucks immensely that we weren’t watching new NCAA games this weekend, making new March memories. I’m still super sad for Udoka. It eased that pain a little to watch some classic games.

I love Brandon Rush’s line about people giving him grief for not scoring more in college. “Man, our whole team was killers.” ↩

Miracle

March 4, 2020 / DB

I’m a failure as a blogger. Somehow I let the 40th anniversary of The Miracle on Ice pass without writing or sharing anything about it. Seriously, the biggest sports moment in the first 10–15 years of my life, and the event against which I have compared all other sports, and I don’t share a word? Weak.

Here are two pieces I consumed the weekend of the anniversary.

First is E.M. Swift’s Sports Illustrated piece for the 1980 Sportsmen of the Year issue. It is a terrific summary of not just what happened, but with the added depth of looking back 10 months later.

A Reminder Of What We Can Be: The 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

Second is this brilliant review of the team’s run from ABC Sports. I’m guessing this was shown the final night of the Olympics, before the closing ceremonies. I love the low-tech graphics and cheesy music. Al Michaels acting like a goofy kid in the studio recap is great. And Jim McKay having a tear in his eye as they looked back is wonderful too.

Herb Brooks fleeing to the locker room as quickly as he could after the wins over the Soviet Union and Finland always gets to me, especially knowing now what we know about him. A man who was driven as few other coaches has been and he couldn’t bring himself to celebrate in public when his team achieved the unthinkable.

Friday Playlist – Something Special

January 31, 2020 / DB

Something different this week.

A few days back I had a sudden memory of a song I had not heard in years. It was just a snippet, but it stuck with me throughout the day. It wasn’t a famous song. It was by an artist I hadn’t thought of in nearly 20 years. When I checked Spotify, the song was out there, though. I listened to it, added it to my Liked Songs list, and moved on.

That song got me thinking, though, about the era it came from. It was released in 2001, which was in the midst of a unique portion of my listening life. That was when alternative rock radio was beginning to fall apart. In Kansas City, we lost two alt rock stations in the space of a year or so. 96.5 The Buzz rose to fill some of the gap, but it did not compare to the legendary 105.9 The Lazer of the 1990s.

Fortunately, my cable TV provider carried the Music Choice channels. Man, I loved me some Music Choice! In that span from 2000–2003 I got most of my new music from it’s alt rock channel. If I was home and not watching a game, I would usually have Music Choice on. When I heard a song I liked, I’d run over to the computer, fire up my file sharing app of the moment, and download the track. Every month or so I would burn a CD – remember burning CDs?!?! – that I took to work to listen to on headphones to help pass the day. When I began traveling to the West Coast a couple times each month, I would always have one of those disks with me to pop into the rental car.

This all combined to form a distinct period in my listening history, from the fall of 2000 until I moved to Indianapolis in June of 2003. As I was in a proper home and not a studio apartment once we got to Indy, my office was away from the TV and Music Choice got shifted a bit. I would pull up the alt rock channel occasionally, but it became more a source of Christmas music in December.[1]

Anyways…my memory was jogged. One day I opened up iTunes and started looking at songs from this period. Soon I was making a playlist in Spotify of my favorites of that era. And that, my friends, is what I share with you today.

To make it nice and round, I’ve pushed the limit of this playlist out to the end of 2004. Truthfully, this era ended right about the time M was born in July of 2004. It was while I was on paternity leave that I first discovered a couple music blogs, sites that would post free MP3’s to download each day. A couple of those tracks are on this list. The list also includes the first songs I ever bought off of the iTunes Music Store. By the time 2005 rolled around I was rarely listening to Music Choice, I had a bunch of music blogs dumping MP3’s into my RSS reader each day, and I had discovered WOXY.com.

So this list celebrates that 3–4 year period when most of my new music came off of a music station that was buried deep in the extra channels of my cable TV package. They are roughly in chronological order, although I’ve added some that went to the bottom of the list.

That was true until just a few years ago when AT&T dropped Music Choice for another, inferior, music service. ↩

Decade in Review

December 31, 2019 / DB

I love the turning of the calendar. A new year is an opportunity to look back on what you’ve experienced over the past 12 months while building anticipation for what is to come in the next 12. When the decade is rolling over, that just makes it more fun.

I have vivid memories of Christmas break 1979, watching various decade-end retrospectives on TV, hearing ads that pulled the arrival of the ‘80s into their copy, and getting very excited about the new year. And I recall my parents giving me weird looks when I emerged from my room with signs that greeted the new decade. I guess we should have all known in that moment I would forever be obsessed with the eighties!

The 2010s were a more relaxed decade in our house than the 2000s were. Where the last decade brought marriage and three kids, this decade was all about our girls growing up. They all went to school, lost a ton of teeth, learned how to ride bikes, and played a lot of youth sports. I feel like S and I are pretty much the same people we were 10 years ago, although with a few more pounds and a little less of the natural hair color we had the last time we welcomed a new decade.

Over the past day I’ve done a quick review of the site’s archives. I read the subject lines and summary paragraphs of every post for the past ten years. Here are some of the biggest highlights of that period.

2010

The Colts lost in the Super Bowl
I covered the best high school basketball game of my writing career
I went to my first (and only) Indy 500
M started kindergarten and our St. P’s career
The Royals traded Zack Greinke

2011

(This year is incomplete because I lost about six months of posts because of my meddling with the site)
I attended Peyton Manning’s last game as a Colt
I ran the Mini Marathon
We spring breaked in Hilton Head
We purchased our first family fish
I began my review of the James Bond movies
KU fired a football coach

2012

The epic final Kansas-Missouri basketball games
Indy hosted the Super Bowl
KU made it to the national championship game with a memorable run
Peyton Manning left Indy
I ran into LeBron James and yelled at Mario Chalmers in an Indy hotel
We bought our lake house
I started brewing my own beer
C started kindergarten
The Royals traded Wil Myers and I was pissed

2013

We went to Disney and Captiva Island on two different trips
S got a new job
The Pacers damn near beat the Heat in the conference finals
The Royals contended until deep in September
We had a family wedding in Boston

2014

I refused to watch the greatest comeback in Colts history
We began the year with two massive snowstorms and bitter cold that cost us an entire week of school
The Jojo and Wiggs experience arrived with so much promise but ended with a whimper
We got rid of our minivan
Casey Kasem died
We bought a boat
L started kindergarten
The Royals made their first magical October run
I made my first trip to Hinkle Fieldhouse
I watched Kentucky absolutely destroy my Jayhawks
KU fired a football coach

2015

We returned to Captiva
The first mega-epic KU-West Virginia game
I bought a camera
A crazy storm made things very interesting at the lake house
The Royals freaking won it all

2016

I lost my stepdad
I coached L’s basketball team
I saw KU lose to Villanova in Louisville
S got to appear on TV several times
Prince died
We went to Orange Beach, AL for spring break
I saw Frightened Rabbit perform twice
I became kickball coordinator
I read the Harry Potter books over a three week period
We spent Christmas in Denver

2017

The BIFM experience
The second mega-epic KU-West Virginia game
L wore high tops to First Communion
Our last fish died

2018

KU-West Virginia played three more mega-epic games
We went to Mexico for spring break
KU made the Final Four
M finally won a city championship in kickball
Scott Hutchison died
We bought a new house, moved, sold the lake house and boat, and after a long wait sold our old house here
We survived three weeks without internet and cable
S and I went to New York for the first time
I became golf-curious
KU fired a football coach

2019

I argued with our gas/water company to get a correct bill after six months
KU’s Big 12 streak ended after 14 years
M won a city championship in volleyball
S nearly missed our spring break because her passport was expired
We went to Cancun
Tiger won the Masters
M went to DC and graduated from St. P’s
C rocked the city track meet
We built a pool
We went to San Diego
I took my first golf lesson and became golf-obsessed
M started high school
Andrew Luck retired

I’m sure there are some big things I missed along the way. But seems like it was a pretty interesting decade. I’m glad I survived it. I hope we are all lucky enough to gather around whatever the device of the day is in ten years to do this again.

Happy New Year to you all!

An Old Faithful

August 29, 2019 / DB

What is the oldest piece of clothing you own? Before you throw out a Christening dress, First Communion dress, or some other thing from your childhood that you’ve saved to pass down to a future generation, allow me to narrow it down a little more. What is the oldest piece of clothing you own that you can still wear?

For me that’s easy. I still own two items that I bought in my first weeks as a student at the University of Kansas in August, 1989. You know, 30 years ago right now.

One item is not that exciting. I bought a blue, pullover, rain jacket that has a generic “Kansas” stamped on the breast to wear to class or football games on rainy days. Although it was only ever used occasionally, I, or someone in my house, continues to use it a few times a year. It is still in our coat closet, ready and waiting to fulfill its mission on a rainy soccer day or camp week.

The other item, though, has somehow managed to survive 30 years despite being a bit of an oddball purchase, initially being grossly mis-sized, and having had multiple different uses.

My very first purchase at the KU Bookstore during Hawk Week 1989 was an extra large, red, t-shirt with Kansas written across the chest in a gentle arc in blue letters with white trim. Your generic 1980s college t-shirt that you saw on every campus.¹ (Here is where I would post a picture of it if my old web host would allow me to add images. No, I have not completed the move to my new host yet because I totally jacked it up and am trying to figure out how to fix it without getting on the phone with someone from India.)

It was an oddball purchase because I went with red rather than the more traditional KU blue, or even white or gray. I guess I figured red would set me apart from the crowd a little. I was also a fan of schools that had third colors back before that became a thing everyone did, and always wished that KU would bust out red uniforms for basketball on occasion.

Buying an extra large was probably ambitious. I believe I went to college weighing about 165-170, and while I was tall and had broad shoulders, I certainly didn’t have the girth to fill it out. Especially since shirts weren’t tailored for an “athletic fit” in the ‘80s. But I did wear XL in some shirts back then so I grabbed this off the rack. However, when I got it back to my dorm, cut the tags off, and then tried it on, I realized that it was likely more of a double-XL than and XL. It fit me like a muumuu, dwarfing my skinny frame. It really looked ridiculous. I distinctly remember wearing it onto campus one day the first week of classes and thinking that I looked like a total idiot and 30,000 other Jayhawks were making fun of me. I’m sure that I washed it in hot water to shrink it to no avail. So phase one of the shirt’s life was spent shoved in the back of a drawer, brought out only when there were no other clean t-shirts.

Phase two kicked off the next May, when I went home for the summer. Despite my pipe-cleaner arms, I decided to cut the sleeves off and use it as a basketball playing shirt. Although the length of the entire shirt was a little long and the chest too broad, it was really the sleeves that were the problem. They stretched past my elbows and billowed about my meager bi- and triceps. While showing those guns off to the world was a whole other problem, I decided that was the lesser of two evils. That shirt got me through many, many years of outdoor hoops. The extra fabric meant there was always somewhere dry to wipe the sweat from my eyes. And when everything got baggy a few years later, I fit right in!²

Phase two lasted over a decade, until my pickup ball career ended. The shirt again went into the drawer. It had shrunk some over all those washings and I had added some weight, so it actually fit well. The color had begun to fade, too. Really, I should have tossed it in the trash sometime around the turn of the millennium. But I kept it for sentimental reasons. That was the first shirt I bought as a college student, after all!

Phase three began when S and I got married and moved to Indianapolis. Suddenly I had a yard to mow on a regular basis. What better shirt to wear than my trusty, red, KU shirt? I could get some sun on my upper arms while also displaying my school loyalty to all my new neighbors. Even better, since the shirt was an afterthought at this point, if I got stains from grass, dirt, gas, blood, or oil on it, it was no big deal. I didn’t wear it every time I mowed the grass, but I did wear it at least once a month.

Over the last 16 years it has aged quite a bit.³ There are a couple holes in it. The color has faded even more. But you know what? It still fits halfway decent. If I was playing any pickup hoops, I would proudly wear it.

A year ago when we moved and I was purging old possessions, I gave some thought to throwing away my trusty red KU shirt. I only have to do sporadic yard work these days since we hired out the mowing. There’s no pickup ball in my life. While I often go sleeveless at the pool, I prefer a shirt that is a synthetic blend rather than 100% cotton. I think I was close to tossing it until I realized if I kept it one more year, I would have owned it for 30 years.

So it remained and remains. Although we’ve now passed its 30th anniversary, I have no plans to toss the shirt. I may not ever wear it again, but it’s not hurting anyone. So it will stay in the bottom of my dresser drawer. Another 30 years might be asking a lot, but I’m hoping to keep it there a good, long time.

1. The first of approximately 749 KU shirts I’ve purchased since.

2. Someday I’ll have to share the story of how I, not the Fab 5 and not Michael Jordan, kicked off the baggy shorts trend.

3. Haven’t we all?

Anatomy of an Obsession

May 22, 2019 / DB

Over the years I’ve had plenty of obsessions that dominate my attention and time. Sometimes it was a person – sorry to all the girls I was a little weird about back in the day. Sometimes it was a band – there’s a long list of artists that I got way into and would listen to, non-stop, for months at a time.

And sometimes it was an activity/hobby. Photography has been the most recent example. Before that there was modern electronics/tech in general, Apple products in particular. Running, Dungeons & Dragons, shortwave radio, Atari games, Pac-Man, the Star Wars universe, and baseball cars are others. There are dozens more I’m forgetting.

Over the last, what, eight months? I’ve shifted away from doing shit with my camera to wanting to hit golf balls. Thus I’ve turned over all the things I pay attention to that are ancillary to the main obsession and cause me to obsess even more. Through that process I’ve both examined how my addictions grow and laughed at myself for how deeply I fall for things that interest me.

Here’s a run-down of how my obsessions take over my life along with some observations of how they have changed over the years.

I’ve always been an information junkie. Throw in that I grew up as an only-child who was often confined to the house because my mom was constantly working, and from an early age I got creative in how to be obsessive within those constraints. I’m guessing it’s more fun to take on a new hobby when you have a sibling who is either interested in it, too, or that you can force to be interested in it. I learned how to make-do, though.

The first step was always reading everything I could find on a topic that interested me. I’d go to the library and check out books. At bookstores, I’d spend hours looking through the magazine racks finding issues that highlighted my interests, or searching the aisles for newer books than I could find at the library. Then I would read the hell out of this stuff. One thing about my family situation was that there wasn’t a ton of money to throw at whatever my latest infatuation was. So I often had to wait to get the gear I needed to actually start doing the activity. In the interim I always figured if I read everything available on the topic, I’d be ready to dive in once my birthday or Christmas rolled around and I received the equipment I needed. I wonder if there’s some master magazine subscription database somewhere in which I could look back and see how many strange magazines I had one-year subscriptions to because of one stupid hobby or another.

The modern addition to this is, clearly, the web. As my hobbies shift in my adult life, so too do the websites that I read and plug into my RSS reader. With social media eclipsing the traditional web for sharing information, I’ve rolled my interests into Twitter, Instagram, and the podcasts I listen to. Looking at all these accounts over time will show how my the people I follow wax and wane as my interests do the same.

If there is a TV angle, I’ll pull that in as well. When I was really into Italian soccer, I would tape the weekly highlights show that aired at something like 2:00 AM on the Prime Sports Network. The summers I’ve been most into baseball, I’m as likely to watch the programs dedicated to baseball news and discussing the game as the actual games. CNet used to have a really good computer show in the late ‘90s that I made sure I watched each week. In the case of golf, I’ve added the Golf Channel to my most watched channels after years of ignoring it.

I think most of us take on hobbies not just to participate in something, but as an excuse to buy things. No matter what your pastime is, there is always something shiny and new that you can go out and buy in hopes of making your experience better. I’ve tried to temper this a little bit, but when I was younger I would sign up for every catalog available for whatever I was interested in at the moment. Our mail carrier was probably like, “WTF is wrong with this kid?” after seeing all the random catalogs that he had to jam into our mailbox. I remember passing golf equipment catalogs around in class my freshman year of high school with other geeks.

My current version of that is stopping in at my local Golf Galaxy or the PGA Tour Superstore at least once a week. I don’t buy something every trip, but I will test putters for half an hour, look at club sets or clothes, all while trying to avoid the sales people who really want me to go through a club fitting. It is both more fun and more dangerous than flipping through catalogs. More fun as the products are right there in my hands. Dangerous since it is awfully easy to walk out having bought something I really don’t need.

It’s worth throwing eBay in, too. You can spend hours looking at used camera lenses or discontinued putters while doing the mental math on whether the savings is worth the possible issues with each item.

Put this all together and I realize that I often spend more time considering an obsession than actually doing it. That’s not unusual; the guy who rebuilds old cars on the weekend will likely spend more time from Monday through Friday planning for his projects, shopping for parts, etc. But my ratio is probably a little more extreme than most. Because of that, I often am better at knowing about things than doing them. I believe that all goes back to my childhood when I sometimes had to put the doing part off until my mom could afford the new toys I was interested in.

Anyway, I’ve laughed at myself a lot lately for how much time I spend thinking about golf. It has been funny to realize I’ve been doing that my entire life and there are clear patterns to how I do so, even if the technology changes.

Here are some of the ways I’m wasting time these days, mostly centering on golf.

Podcasts I listen to regularly:
General: Roderick on the Line, Back to Work, Road Work, Reconcilable Differences, Omnibus
Tech: Accidental Tech Podcast
Golf: No Laying Up, The Shotgun Start, Chasing Scratch, The Golfer’s Journal Podcast
Photography: The FujiCast

YouTube channels I subscribe to:
Golf: No Laying Up, plus a lot of random videos that get suggested
Photography: Denae & Andrew, Matt Day

Forums I Read: No Laying Up’s Refuge

Throw in books and magazines and S was telling the truth when she told her med school buddy we went out with awhile back, “Have D tell you about his new golf obsession.”

Title Games: How I Got Here

January 18, 2019 / DB

Conference championship weekend.

That doesn’t get me fired up the way it used to. Although I came back to the NFL a little this season, I would still label myself as a casual fan at best. A far cry from when I was a kid and I was super into everything about the NFL. I watched The NFL Today each Sunday, made sure I caught the halftime highlights on Monday Night Football, and could likely tell you several important facts about the third place team in each division.

Back in those days I was a hardcore Cowboys fan. That all stemmed from the first Super Bowl I ever watched in January 1977. I thought it was cool that the two teams playing, Dallas and Denver, both started with a D. The Cowboys won, I adopted them as my favorite team. I lived in southeast Missouri, the nearest team, the St. Louis Cardinals, were kind of garbage. It seemed like a good move.

When we moved to Kansas City in the summer of 1980, the Cowboys were beginning a run of losing in the NFC title game three-straight years. At my new bus stop, in the classroom, on the playground at recess, and at my own football practices, the primary topic of discussion was the Royals, who made it to the World Series that year. But when football would come up, I was usually the outcast. There were a few Steelers fans, a few random Raiders or Broncos fans, and a sprinkling of Cowboys fans. But most of the boys I hung out were Chiefs fans.

I remember a conversation that fall that went something like this:

“Why don’t you like the Chiefs?”
“Because I like the Cowboys.”
“Well, you live here now, you have to like the Chiefs.”
“That’s stupid. And so are you.”

I didn’t learn to cuss until later that year, otherwise I would have told the kid to fuck off.

Don’t get me wrong, over the next decade or so when the Chiefs had the occasional solid year, I would cheer for them. I went to a few games here and there and pulled for them to win. In the early 90s, when they became a very good team, I pulled hard for them…as long as they weren’t playing the Cowboys. They were a pretty solid second team, and it was cool that the local team was doing well.

But as the 90s progressed, the Chiefs started to drive me nuts. I hated how the Chiefs were the primary topic of KC sports discussion so much of the year.[1] I hated the almost Stalinist party line that the entire Chiefs organization stuck to in the Carl Peterson era. And that guy, he drove me freaking nuts with his press conferences where he would say “The Kansas City Chiefs Football Team” 1000 times while insisting everything at 1 Arrowhead Way was better than any other place in the NFL.

And then there were Chiefs fans. Not all of them, for sure. In fact, not even a very large percentage of them. But there was that vocal, idiot minority who just drove me nuts. The ones who yelled “Chiefs!” at the end of the national anthem at KU, Royals, or other games. The ones who had entire wardrobes that were nothing but Zubaz pants in Chiefs colors. I remember coworkers going on-and-on about how Steve Bono or Elvis Grbac were going to lead the Chiefs to the Super Bowl. I decided those “Camaroheads” were the typical Chiefs fan, and began openly rooting against them. I laughed when the Chiefs blew playoff appearance after playoff appearance. Greg Hill raising the roof when he got a first down while precious time ticked away in another home playoff loss was my favorite Chiefs moment ever. That the Cowboys dynasty was crumbling didn’t matter to me. I was more interested in watching Chiefs fans be sad.

I think it is very hard to live in an NFL city, be a fan of another team, and not end up hating the local team. Especially these days, where NFL games are 3+ hour exercises in avoiding drunk people, fights, and other nonsense. It’s easy to look at whatever stupidity is going on at your local stadium, think that is unique to your city, and then use it as a reason to hate the local squad.

When we moved to Indy, I was still a Cowboys fan. But I was growing sick of Jerry Jones’ bullshit. The Colts were getting good. It seemed like the perfect time to jump ship. My first year here, the Colts went to Kansas City for a playoff game. I wish I still had one of my favorite voice mails of all time, left on the answering machine attached to our land line – !!!! – during that epic, no-punt game.

“D, it’s Julie! Are you watching the game? Because the Colts are wiiiiiiinning!”
(Voice in background: ‘He doesn’t like the Chiefs!’)
“Oh, Mark says you don’t like the Chiefs…so never mind. Go Colts!”

So, for the couple of readers who told me they didn’t realize I wasn’t a Chiefs fan a week ago, that’s most of the story of how that came to be.

Speaking of bullshit, I’m pretty sick of New England’s bullshit. When their dynasty was first getting started, I really admired them. Tom Brady still seemed like a delightful fluke. They rarely had superstars around him on offense, and Belichick built a classic No Name defense that was always better than everyone else in January.

But they kept winning, got obnoxious, cheated several times, and became a joyless, soulless machine that just grinds all the fun out of the game. Tom Brady whining about how everyone thinks they suck and no one thinks they can win is classic, Patriots horseshit. Jon Bon Jovi and Robert Kraft sitting together and singing “Livin’ On A Prayer,” might be the worst moment of the 21st Century.[2]

So am I pulling for the Chiefs Sunday? Let’s not go too far, now. I would rather see the Chiefs win. But I will still laugh if all the Camaroheads go home sad because Belichick and Brady’s deal with the devil remains valid and they somehow get out of KC with a win.

Chiefs 45, Patriots 21. Yes, 21. Fuck you, Brady.
Saints 38, Rams 35

It didn’t help that the Royals now sucked. ↩
JBJ is from fucking New Jersey, owns an arena team in Philly, and tried to buy the Bills. How the fuck – other than bandwagon jumping – is he sitting on Kraft’s lap during games? ↩