Even the White House seems to have had enough.
“For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm,” White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said at a December press briefing.
The last of my blogs (“Jeanne Robertson’s Last Performance”) has her suggestions about collecting her scripts or materials. Her tool of choice was mostly simple yellow legal tablets. She also wrote a book detailing for us how to see what is in front of us. I took her advice.
My reading choices became more of a search for interesting ideas and good writers. My Son, Dan recommended SAPIENS by Yuval Harari, which stayed on the best seller list for 60 plus weeks.
I clipped and I ” cherry picked ” all kinds of comments and ideas from Harari’s book Then he wrote a new one. And another!
My LEGAL PAD (the list to follow ) has grown. I don’t if I could organize it if I had the energy. Hear is the list. Do your own cherry picking.
YUVAL HARARI’’S BOOKS
HIGH LIGHTS
In a nutshell #1 dealt with our past. 2. Our future, and 3. The Present
SAPIENS;
We are the deadliest species in the annals of biology
PAGE 4 SUMMARY
13.5 Billion years ago—BIG BANG
Sapiens show up 70k, 70k ago neanderthals soon gone
Clue to Sapiens—gossip ability—led to communities, Law,religion,rules,communication.
Biology rules—hormones, genes, synapses
150 is ideal number for groups.
Page 360, parents in full retreat
From 1000 ad to 500 ad, not much happened.
500 million people in 1500 ad. 2014 there are 7 billion.
Happiness bulb born with, doesn’t change much.
Artificial Intelligence is the future. Not religion, God, Nature etc.
2—HOMO DEUS—a brief history of tomorrow
**deals with future. Mankind’s quest to upgrade humans to gods.
**mankind has almost and will conquer the three remaining super problems: famine, plague, and war. No need to work. Task—find
“happiness.
**artificial intelligence—where to go from here.
**homo sapiens may be more like Neanderthals the future homo deus.
**homo deus is where mankind is headed.
21 LESSONS for the 21st century
Protecting ourselves—war, ecology
What to do with fake news, terrorism
How to prepare our children for the future
“When has history been fair”?
Current problems: climate change, dying liberal democracy, a new world war? Fake news, technology goes wrong, immigration, the meaning of life today,.
Technology giving us the power to “reshape and reengineer humanity.
‘the reliance on the heart may prove to be the Achilles heel of liberal democracy.
Some folks are smarter than others. Listen to algorithms.
BxCxD=AHH! Biological knowledge multiplied by computing power multiplied by data = ability to hack humans c
Page 2
Some other good stuff:
THE BODY by Bill Bryson
*page 14 on skin color—sliver from cadaver, one millimeter thick from epidermis. That’s all
*memory: recall a deck of cards after 30 minutes. Oriental girl 17 seconds?
* teenagers in cars. Another teenager in car? Rate goes up 400x. page pp 63
* human brain shrunk size of tennis ball
* EXERCISE: 80% us men are overweight, 77% women. 35% are obese.
* FITBIT—tie to dog to up totals for job
* BIPEDS== YES BUT BACKS, KNEES. PELVIS—CHILDBIRTH.
*weight for women in 1960 was 144 to 166. Men 166 to 196.
* SITTING TO MUCH.
* I was your first wife!
* Asthma—good section pages 216-221. SMOKING FOLLOWS
* HICCUPS—one guy had them 67 years!
*
OUTLIERS—The Story of Success/by Malcolm Gladwell
CANADIAN JR. HOCKEY ALL-STARS (born n Jan. Why? The outlier?
10,000 hours. Bill Gates and PC. BEATLES—Pretty bad. Hamburg strip clubs . HAD TO PLAY 8 HOURS. PRACTICE,.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING JEWISH. JOE FLOM AND HOSTILE TAKEOVERS. WHEN TIME CAME, TIME WAS IN.
–BORN IN DEPRESSION—TAKE NO CHANCES.
JEWS AND THE GARMENT INDUSTRY. 3RD GENERATION WERE LAWYERS AND DRS. THE CHILDREN OF THE BOOK.
A CULTURE OF HONOR. SOUTHERNERS CALLED ASSHOLE WILL FIGHT YOU.
KOREAN CO-PILOTS AND NYC AIRPORT CONTROL.LERS
NOT OUTLIERS AT ALL. They are products of history and community, opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious.
Due to advantages, inheritances, , luck, some earned,,come not, variables critical to making them who they are.
MICHIO KAKU
HIGH POINT LECTURE WITH NIDO QUEBEIN—OUTSTANDING HOUR.
THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
WILL FUTURE PIONEERS SEARCH SPACE FOR A NEW SAFE HOME AS THE AFRICANS DID, KNOWING THEIR GENERATION WOULD NOT BENEFIT, BUT OFFSPRING MAY?
—-NEAREST STAR TO US IS 4.2 LIGHT YEARS AWAY.
—-THREE WAVES OF SCIENCE MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL, TECH.
—ADVANCED CIVILIZATIONS SEEM POSSIBLE
——-ADMIRAL ZENG OF CHINA, BOATS 5X TIME COLUMBUS. NEXT EMPEROR BANNED SCIENCE. LET TO POVERTY AND DOOMED ANY PROGRESS
—PRESERVING HUMANS BY FREEZING NOT A CRAZY IDEA?
—-ARE WE IN THE LAST GENERATION TO DIE— IMMORTALITY NEAR?
—-FARMER===EVERY CHILD MAKES YOU RICHER. CITY==EVERY CHILD MAKES YOU POORER!
SCHIZOPHENICS. EVERYONE TALKS TO SELF. NO LEFT BRAIN TO PREFRONTAL CORTEX—-VOICES SEEM REAL.—
CLIMATE CHANGE—SEE ADDENDUM YUVAL HARARI’’S BOOKS
HIGH LIGHTS
In a nutshell #1 dealt with our past. 2. Our future, and 3. The Present
SAPIENS;
We are the deadliest species in the annals of biology
PAGE 4 SUMMARY
13.5 years ago—BIG BANG
Sapiens show up 70k, 70k ago neanderthals soon gone
Clue to Sapiens—gossip abillity—led to communities, law,religion,rules,communication.
Biology rules—hormones, genes, synapses
150 is ideal number for groups.
Page 360, parents in full retreat
From 1000 ad to 500 ad, not much happened.
500 million people in 1500 ad. 2014 there are 7 billion.
Happiness bulb born with, doesn’t change much.
Artificial Intelligence is the future. Not religion, God, Nature etc.
2—HOMO DEUS—a brief history of tomorrow
**deals with future. Mankind’s quest to upgrade humans to gods.
**mankind has almost and will conquer the three remaining super problems: famine, plague, and war. No need to work. Task—find
“happiness.
**artificial intelligence—where to go from here.
**homo sapiens may be more like Neanderthals the future homo deus.
**homo deus is where mankind is headed.
21 LESSONS for the 21st century
Protecting ourselves—war, ecology
What to do with fake news, terrorism
How to prepare our children for the future
“When has history been fair”?
Current problems: climate change, dying liberal democracy, a new world war? Fake news, technology goes wrong, immigration, the meaning of life today,.
Technology giving us the power to “reshape and reengineer humanity.
‘the reliance on the heart may prove to be the Achilles heel of liberal democracy.
Some folks are smarter than others. Listen to algorithms.
BxCxD=AHH! Biological knowledge multiplied by computing power multiplied by data = ability to hack humans c
Page 2
Some other good stuff:
THE BODY by Bill Bryson
*page 14 on skin color—sliver from cadaver, one millimeter thick from epidermis. That’s all
*memory: recall a deck of cards after 30 minutes. Oriental girl 17 seconds?
* teenagers in cars. Another teenager in car? Rate goes up 400x. page pp 63
* human brain shrunk size of tennis ball
* EXERCISE: 80% us men are overweight, 77% women. 35% are obese.
* FITBIT—tie to dog to up totals for job
* BIPEDS== YES BUT BACKS, KNEES. PELVIS—CHILDBIRTH.
*weight for women in 1960 was 144 to 166. Men 166 to 196.
* SITTING TO MUCH.
* I was your first wife!
* Asthma—good section pages 216-221. SMOKING FOLLOWS
* HICCUPS—one guy had them 67 years!
*
OUTLIERS—The Story of Success/by Malcolm Gladwell
CANADIAN JR. HOCKEY ALL-STARS (born n Jan. Why? The outlier?
10,000 hours. Bill Gates and PC. BEATLES—Pretty badl Hamburg strip clubs . HAD TO PLLAY 8 HOURS. PRACTICE,.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING JEWISH. JOE FLOM AND HOSTILE TAKEOVERS. WHEN TIME CAME, TIME WAS IN.
–BORN IN DEPRESSION—TAKE NO CHANCES.
JEWS AND THE GARMENT INDUSTRY. 3RD GENERATION WERE LAWYERS AND DRS. THE CHILDREN OF THE BOOK.
A CULTURE OF HONOR. SOUTHERNERS CALLED ASSHOLE WILL FIGHT YOU.
KOREAN CO-PILOTS AND NYC AIRPORT CONTROL.LERS
NOT OUTLIERS AT ALL. They are products of history and community, opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious.
Due to advantages, inheritances, , luck, some earned,,come not, variables critical to making them who they are.
MICHIO KAKU
HIGH POINT LECTURE WITH NIDO QUEBEIN—OUTSTANDING HOUR.
THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
WILL FUTURE PIONEERS SEARCH SPACE FOR A NEW SAFE HOME AS THE AFRICANS DID, KNOWING THEIR GENERATION WOULD NOT BENEFIT, BUT OFFSPRING MAY?
—-NEAREST STAR TO US IS 4.2 LIGHT YEARS AWAY.
—-THREE WAVES OF SCIENCE MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL, TECH.
—ADVANCED CIVILIZATIONS SEEM POSSIBLE
——-ADMIRAL ZENG OF CHINA, BOATS 5X TIME COLUMBUS. NEXT EMPEROR BANNED SCIENCE. LET TO POVERTY AND DOOMED ANY PROGRESS
—PRESERVING HUMANS BY FREEZING NOT A CRAZY IDEA?
—-ARE WE IN THE LAST GENERATION TO DIE— IMMORTALITY NEAR?
—-FARMER===EVERY CHILD MAKES YOU RICHER. CITY==EVERY CHILD MAKES YOU POORER!
SCHIZOPHENICS. EVERYONE TALKS TO SELF. NO LEFT BRAIN TO PREFRONTAL CORTEX—-VOICES SEEM REAL.—
CLIMATE CHANGE—SEE ADDENDUM
NEW BOOK-“RANGE” by David Epstein
TIGER WOODS VS ROGER FEDERER OR 10,000 HOURS (MALCOLM GLADWELL AND “OUTLIERS (TIGER), OR FED AND A DIVERSE BACKGROUND.
MERH CD’/ MERCEDES
AVERAGE AGE OF A FOUNDER IS 45
EVERYONE NEEDS HABITS OF MIND THAT ALLOW THEM TO DANCE ACROOS THE DISCIPLINES
NO TOOL IS OMNIPOTENT
TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE BROADLY REQUIRES BROAD KNOWLEDGE
OLYMPIANS AT 12-13 -RANGE
MUSICIANS —TRY AND CAN USE 3 OR MORE INSTRUMENTS
DAVE BRUBECK (TAKE FIVE) COULDN’T READ MUSIC
TO ACQIRE KNOWLEDGE SLOWLY HELPS YOU MAKE THE RIGHT MATCH
WINNERS NEVER QUIT (YET TO HONOR OR GOOD SENSE (W. CHURCHCHILL)
YOUNG PEOPLE SHOULD TAKE RISKS
“SUNK COST FALLACY” CUT AND RUN, KNOW WHEN TO FOLD. DEAD HORSE.
IN GOD WE TRUST. ALL OTHERS BRING DATA. NO DATA—REASON
THE GAME IS THE BEST TEACHER
BREAKTHROUGH AND FALLACY LOOK A LOT ALIKE INITIALLY
“IT IS AN EXPERIMENT, AS ALL OF LIFE IS AN EXPERIMENT” OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
********
“The Biggest Bluff” by Maria Konnikova
Author Konnikova is a professional psychologist who selects professional poker as a place to examine self, skill, luck and life. Below are simply some conclusions she arrives at. P.S.—She hired Eric Seidel, world champion of poker, as her coach:
And the biggest bluff of all? That skill can ever be enough. That’s the hope that allows us to move forward in those moments when luck is most stacked against us, the useful delusion that lets us push o rather than give up. We don’t know, we can’t ever know, if we’ll manage or not. But we must convince ourselves that we can. That, in the end, our skill will be enough to carry the day. Because it has to be.
Admitting to unknowing, accepting a lack of agency without resorting to gimmicks, and instead attempting to analyze the unknown as best we can with the tools of rationality: those are some of the most powerful steps we can take.
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who wish to pretend to nonexistent knowledge and control and a Cosmos centered on human beings, will prefer superstition.
Nothing is all skill. Ever. I shy away from absolutes, but this one callout for my embrace. Because life is life, luck will always be a factor in anything we might do or undertake, but should chance go against us, all our skill can do is mitigate the damage.
I hope I can keep playing for a very, very long time. I don’t want to have to retire. This game is just too damn interesting. It’s such a beautiful game.
And it is. It really is.
*******************************
THE GOD DELUSION by Richard Dawkins
The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
If people wish to love a 7th century preacher more than their own families, that is up to them, but nobody else is obliged to take it seriously.
Behead those who say islam is a violent religion.
I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.
We who love science must remember that the enemy of our enemies is our friend.
George W. Bush says God told him to invade Iraq ( a pity God didn’t vouchsafe he a revelation that there were no weapons of mass destruction.)
One of the truly bad effect of religion is that it teaches us that is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.
Politics has slain thousands, but religion has slain its tens of thousands.
Those who can make you believe in absurdities can also make you commit atrocities.
There is in every village a torch—the teacher
And an extinguisher—-the clergyman.“
That it will never come again
is what makes life so sweet.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt in your “philosophy”.
What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
The idea of a personal god is quite alien to me and seems even naive. Einstein
Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you’re not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they should’t be.
The priests of the different religious sects…..dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live. Thomas Jefferson
SEPTEMBER 2021—BOOK COMMENTS CONTINUED
“Fields of Blood” (Religion and the History of Violence ) by Karen Armstrong.
At first this book seemed too deep. Indeed the detail and scholarship are thorough. Looking again I saw this as an excellent text for religion majors.
Atlantic Christian College , my alma mater, changed its name to Barton. I never knew much about the namesake (Barton Stone) but found these on page 274 of Fields of Blood:
“…Barton Stone railed against the aristocratic clergy who tried to force the erudite faith of Harvard on the people.
“Enlightenment philosophers had insisted that people must have the courage to throw off their dependence on authority, use their natural reason to discover the truth, and think for themselves.”
“When Stone founded his own denomination, he called it a ‘declaration of independence’: bringing modern ideals of democracy equality, freedom of speech, and independence … (to the populace).
Armstrong demonstrates again and again that the great spasms of cruelty and killing through history have had little or no religious overlay. In modern times Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all atheists, and the power behind the Holocaust, Armstrong says, was an ethnic rather than a religious hatred. An overemphasis on religion’s damage can blind people to the nonholy terrors that their states inflict. NYT REVIEW by James Fallows—2014)
…the main hope for peace is to keep faith and statecraft separate.
****ENLIGHTENMENT NOW by Steven Pinker. Sub- title is spot on (the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress).
This was a “stumble on” that is very good.
Louie: CK “The foundations of capitalism are shattering…” REALLY?
“…maybe we need some time where we are wandering around with a donkey with pots clanging on the sides…”
Flight—-sat on runway 40 minutes.
??? miracle of human flight—-sitting in a chair in the sky—New York to California in 5 hours is slow? Used to take 30 years and many would die, with an arrow through your throat. They’d put your hat on a stick and bury you and keep walking!
Page 9 on what educated Englishman (1600) would believe…witches, werewolves, unicorns, base metal to gold, etc. century later he believes none of these.
Thomas Jefferson: light from me doesn’t diminish my flame. Instruction is the same way…
“Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory”
Chris Rock: “ this is the first society in history where the poor people are fat.”
“…global citizen is 125 times more likely to die in an accident…” than a terrorist attack. for Americans—3000 times!
“We have at our fingertips…all the works of genius prior to our time…” plus that of our time. Those before had neither,
Three main threats: Overpopulation, Resource Depletion, and Pollution.
NASA: Man is the lowest cost, 150 pound, non linear, all-purpose computer system, which can be mass produced by unskilled labor.
“…society advances funeral by funeral!”
God and reason: “…faith, revelation, scripture, authority, tradition, and subjective appeal are not arguments at all.”
Incompatible beliefs, how many gods?, different religions, different sources, which miracles?, what they demand.
human errors, factual errors, plagiarism, scientific absurdness.
*****CHERRY PICKING OTHERS (lOVE AND THEFT—DYLAN)
FORGET THE ALAMO. This book contends much of “Alamo lore” is Alamo myth!
Real reason? Europeans were choosing cotton for clothing. This part of Texas was ideal for cotton farming—if you had slaves to do the work. Mexico was anti-slavery.
*******
AMERICAN HAPPINESS AND DISCONTENTS
the unruly torrent
(2008-2020) by George Will
CTE—1966- bear bryant’s heaviest player weight 223 lbs. 2011 NFL had 320 players weighing 300.
two bad features—violence and committee meetings (huddles)
…not the rules but the fiction that football can be fixed and still resemble the game fan relish.”
louisville brought pros and strippers to the bball dorm 22 times in 2 years. pitino—duh? yet hired by Iona.
“Drugs drain sport admirable excellence, which elevates as well as competitors.”
Wills cites vague “einstein” stanza from DESOLATION ROW. Final one clearer?
Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob broke
When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke
All these people that you mention, yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name
Right now, I can’t read too good, don’t send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row
“Do not speak unless you can improve on silence.”
ON VIETNAM
Easier to muddle through than to admit you were wrong
Westmoreland ( “never had general so effectively willed away the facts”)
Famous photo? plain clothed Viet Cong who had just cut the throat of a South Vietnamese officer’s wife, six children, and the officer’s Mother.
NO WAR IS OVER UNTIL THE LAST VETERAN IS DEAD
Size of our universe
page 55 —ton of facts
If there were only 3 bees in America, the air would be more crowded with bees than space is with stars.
A dog was trained to emit a whimpering sound every time it heard the word HILARY.
“College: The best seven years of my life!”
there is something to be said for exposing yourself to ideas other than your own.
Will—Chernow’s GRANT is great history writing.
More dying by lifestyle increasing!
ON EUTHANASIA—-Pages 354-355.
“I am doing everything I can to continue to live. No one should have the right to prolong my death.”
People spoke jauntily of “the conquest of space.” Well.
The universe, 99.9 (and at least fifty-eight other nines) percent of which is already outside Earth’s atmosphere, is expanding (into we know not what) at forty-six miles per second per mega parsec. (One megaparsec is approximately 3.26 million light years.) Astronomers are studying light that has taken perhaps 12 billion years to reach their instruments. This cooling cinder called Earth, spinning in the darkness at the back of beyond, is a minor speck of residue from the Big Bang, which lasted less than a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second 13.8 billion years ago. The estimated number of stars—they come and go— is 100 followed by twenty-two zeros. The visible universe (which is hardly all of it) contains more than 150 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars. But if there were only three bees in America, the air would be core crowded with bees than space is with stars. The distances, and the violently unheavenly conditions in “the heavens”, tell us that our devices will roam our immediate cosmic neighborhood, but in spite of Apollo 11’s still-darling achievement, we are not really going anywhere.
EUTHANASIA (PAGES 354-355
Cederquist says the most common reason for requesting assistance in dying is not “intolerable physical suffering”. Rather, it is “existential suffering”, including loss of meaning,” as from the ability to relate to others. The prospect of being “unable to interact” can be as intolerable as physical suffering, and cannot be alleviated by hospice or other palliative care.
In some countries, doctors actively administer lethal injections. No U.S. jurisdiction allows doctors to go beyond writing prescriptions for lede-ending drugs to be self administered orally by persons retaining decisional capacity.
Almost 30 percent of Medicare expenditures are for patients in the last six months of life, and about 16 percent of patients die in, or soon after leaving, intensive care units. Financial reasons should be decisive in setting end-of-life policy, but Cederquist notes that reducing “expensive and inappropriate care”— costly and agonizing resistance to imminent death “is the lowest-tech thing we can do in medicine.”Hence the importance of “slow medicine geriatrics,” avoiding a “rush to those interventions that build on each other”and thereby enmesh doctors and patients in ethical conundrums.The American Medical Association remains opposed to physician assistance in dying; the California Medical Association has moved from opposition to neutrality. Litigation has been unsuccessful in seeking judicial affirmation of a high that California’s legislature should establish. Legislation to do this has been authored by Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, chair of the Democratic caucus.
There are reasons for wariness. An illness’s sox-month trajectory can be uncertain. A right to die can become a felt obligation, particularly among bewildered persons tangled in the toils of medical technologies, or persons with meager family resources. And as a reason for ending life, mental suffering itself calls into question the existence of the requisite decisional competence.
Today’s culture of casual death (see Planned Parenthood videos )should deepen worries about a slippery slope from physician-assisted dying a further diminution of life’s sanctity. Life, however, is inevitably lived on multiple slippery slopes:Taxation could become confiscation, police could become instruments of oppression, public education could become indoctrination, etc. Everywhere and always, civilization depends on the drawing of intelligent distinctions.
Jennifer Glass, a Californian who died August 11, drew one. She said to her state legislators, “I’m doing everything I can to extend my life. No one should have the right to prolong my death”.
The Economist reports that in the seventeen years under Oregon’s pioneering 1997 law, just 1,327 people have received prescriptions for lethal medications—about seventy-four a year—and one third of those did not use them. Possessing the option was sufficient reassurance.
There is nobility is suffering bravely borne, but also in affirming at the end the distinctive human dignity of autonomous choice.Brittany Maynard, who chose to be with loved ones when she self-administered her lethal medications was asleep in five minutes and soon dead.
Jeanne talked a lot about her height. She was larger than life. Husband , Jerry and I played poor golf equally together. We, joined by Alan White.and wife “Norma Rose”, enjoyed them both as dear friends. Many occasions with Elon University and it’s athletics programs.
Many times someone would say to me, “…I saw you on television with that funny woman!” Her video on an eight day white-water rafting trip down the entire Grand Canyon was a fan favorite and popular on youtube. A trip shared by me and wife Margaret, as tag alongs, who joined Jeanne’s group of professional speakers. Some Baptists sprinkled in totalling 30 “rafters .”
There are lots of similar Jeanne videos and books and performances. Never once does she disappoint.
The link below shows how to view her last video. Like her other material, about half of the hour long presentation is humerous.
The second half is different and I don’t feel I should define what she does. Suffice it to say, it is a from the heart gift. Directed toward her people or team –the nation’s speakers. But, true to form, good advice for many.
Memories often lag among us 80’s. I have several beloved friends whose wives have been thrust into “caregiver roles”. I remember my 90 year old Mom lamenting “…all my friends are gone!”
Alton played for the BEAUFORT SEA DOGS. In the 60’s this coastal village in North Carolina produced three straight high school state basketball titles. He and a bunch of high tider boys named Hassell won 91 straight games. And they are proud of it. For years I listened with envy as they all recalled details from each years games. Alton was perhaps the most meticulous oral historian of all the BEAUFORT SEADOGS.
A popular commment recently was “…seventy may be the new sixty, but eighty is still eighty!” One suggestion is to limit questions to my gang. “Do you remember…. yeilds a blank, often panicked look.
I recently asked Alton, what schools did you guys beat in the state championship playoffs? Oops–his face became overtaken by “the look”.
Momentarily though, with a new, confident expression –he answered my question : “All of em!!
Touche.
TO ORDER BOOK (S)
MAIL CHECK ($30 FOR BOOK, $5 FOR MAILING ) TO:
Tom Parham
202 Blue Crab Court
Emerald Isle, NC
28594
Emerald Isle, NC
James Michener’s SPACE suggested that numerically the odds are fifteen to one that there are other habitable planets. He wrote SPACE in 1982. The same question posed last night yielded this analogy: With what is known now about the number of stars, without having found such planets, is like taking a glass of water from the ocean and finding no fish, assuming there are none in the ocean.
A new book, “Em “Ole Coaches” by Tom Parham is now available. Coach Parham stretches his insight this time. “ I have been ‘hobby writing’ for fifteen years since retiring. A 5OO plus blog of articles plus seven things that look like books. I have selected the best of all for this book.” Chapters are made of chosen comments on the wide variety of topics. Parham adds “..everything from pickle ball to religion.” Light humor to war, race, the future. “This is an “everyman” attempt. There is new tennis knowledge included, written since the green book.”
PAST REVIEWS
Tom Parham has been a student, an athlete, a teacher and a coach. He has observed life thoroughly from each perspective, soaking in the humor as well the heartache. He is a great storyteller with great stories to tell – the end result of a life well-lived and a life well-listened. “‘Em Ol’ Coaches” is a compilation of these experiences that defies the pigeonholes of essay and editorial. He delivers the written word in an honest North Carolina voice, a voice shaped by a journey that begins in Charlotte and makes its way across the state to Emerald Isle, with many stops along the way. Enjoy the ride. I did. (Russell Rawlings, North Carolina Bar).
*******
Tom is always cogitating, mulling things over, which makes him also an inveterate agitator. He likes to unmask illusions. His book takes us on a journey through a life-time of seeing things differently, often from a perspective of humor. Maybe Tom is Will Rogers reincarnated!
Richard (Richard McBride is a retired Chaplain from Elon University, a fine man, and my friend.) tp
**********
“This isn’t just a book for tennis coaches. It is a book for all coaches.” (Joe Robinson, former UNC football staff).
*********
BOOK PREFACE:
Macky Carden was the head football coach at Elon College in 1985. They had great results in NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) football in the 1980s, having won National titles in 1980 and 1981. They were again preseason #1 when I took a job there that included athletic administration duties. Unintentionally I interrupted a staff meeting on player evaluation. They allowed me to sit in on the judgements. Later I asked Coach Carden how they determined whether a prospect had what it took to be an elite college football player. Macky, a stellar lineman, had his own vernacular. Often he preceded nouns with “em ol” or them old. (“em ol” linebackers, or “em ol” defensive coaches, or “em ol” academic dicks across the street ). Addressing my question he concluded : I tell you, “em ol” high school coaches are honest and pretty damn accurate.” I learned a lot from coaches. And a lot of “em ol” people who were coaches in their own way.
**********
TO ORDER BOOK (S)
MAIL CHECK ($30 FOR BOOK, $5 FOR MAILING ) TO:
Tom Parham
202 Blue Crab Court
28594
Emerald Isle, NC
*********
MORE REVIEWS:
NCTF is pleased to help supply Tom Parham’s book, “The Little Green Book of Tennis” to our many hardworking coaches who can gain knowledge about tennis to impart to their HS players.”
Coaches will appreciate his originality and benefit from his years of experience.” (Coach Bob Bayliss, Notre Dame Men’s Tennis, ITA Hall of Fame)
We talked frankly about his book. I know he believes firmly that it will serve America’s young players, coaches & teams. I know it’s foundation. I know this man. Both are solid. I cannot think of anyone more qualified than Tom in regards to his knowledge of the game. If you want a true “student of the game” and excellent coaching skills, he is your man!!! “The Little Green Book” is proof.
J.Allen Morris
I just received your “signed” book today! I finished reading the digital copy last weekend. I really liked your advice on Preparing For College Tennis. I think many parents could benefit from that advice.
— Paul Miller (North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame)
The wisdom gained in a brilliant career has been boiled down to bite-sized pearls of wisdom in “The Little Green Book of Tennis” – a must-read for coaches, instructors, players, and parents.
Ron (Smarr) INTERCOLLEGIATE TENNIS HALL OF FAME.
His words flow off the page much in the same manner as the great teachers and coaches I have known. Coach Parham concludes that “this material is, in large part, not mine. I am only the messenger. I believed in it and benefitted from these masters. I did write it down.” I don’t think anyone has done it better.” (David Odom, Wake Forest University Men’s Basketball Coach)
Coach Parham is a master teacher and looked at as a integral part of tennis history in North Carolina, the South, and the nation. The book, The Little Green Book of Tennis is spot on in method and message for coaches, players, and teams, at all levels. Buy it.” (Roland Thornqvist, Head Women’s Tennis Coach, University of Florida)
NCTF HALL of FAME MEMBER, Keith Richardson comments:
“Coach, thanks for “Little Green Book of Tennis”…..it’s a gem, a resource, a reference tool, a reminder of the lessons we should be teaching on and off the court. Pure genius the way you weave your funk into time tested drills, coaching and life advice that most of us have heard before, but have forgotten to pass on.
My advice to the pros, coaches, and instructors of the game? Buy two copies of “The Little Green Book of Tennis.” Place one on the coffee table to impress the cocktail crowd. Take the second copy and do what you are not supposed to do to a literary work: throw it in your tennis bag, take it to the courts, the locker room…get it dirty and beat up by repeatedly opening and letting your eyes go to the guidance and advice that you didn’t know you were looking for…. dog ear the section that you can use in your next clinic, highlight the one sentence that becomes the “tennis tip” in your weekly newsletter, steal the forty coaching years of Coach Parham’s wisdom and share it with your team…..all the while acting like you came up with the winning formula by yourself. Coach Parham wouldn’t want it any other way.
Tom, thanks again for the work, and for sharing it.”
A discussion among a group of retired tennis coaches included this question posedof a new retiree : Why did you retire so early? The amusing answer included new limitations on the amount of cursing, dress requiremrnts, shorter practices, and such. The coach laughingly concluded ” Heck, they were taking away all my main tools and techniques. Basic fundamentals of my coaching!
Subsequently, on a trip to celebrate the 80th birthday of friend Bill Morningstar, we again told old basketball tales. Which inevitably led to Bill’s college basketball coach, Bill Miller. M’star not only played point guard for Miller’s Elon College teams, he was his assistant for a record number of seasons.
Here is an earlier discription of Miller tales I collected:
Coach Miller was from Harlan, Kentucky, and he spoke that language. Around anyone from the Dean to his players. I knew him not only from the basketball world, but tennis too. AC was in the same conference as Elon (the North State, then the Carolinas Conference) and Coach and I were around each other often. I’d heard countless stories about him, and had witnessed several “classics” myself.
One pastime in my early times at Elon was to ask anyone who had been around Elon for a while if they “Knew Coach Miller?” This invariably drew one of two unequivocal responses.
#1 “I didn’t care form him.” (that meant my interview subject had probably walked across the gym floor in street shoes. If so, some variation of “Get your goddammed ass off my gym floor”, came from Coach.
Author’s note: I know I’ll be chastened for language, particularly for using Coach Miller’s, but “ if I’m lying I’m flying.” Ask any Elon veteran.
Miller was rawboned, black haired, and glared at you. His assistant Coach Bill Morningstar covered for him as best he could. Booze, language, threats, violence itself, was everyday “Miller Time.” Miller would run ‘em off, “Star would go get ‘em.
The #2 reaction I got was always priceless, and always different. Coach Miller was creative.
Once the “Fightin’ Christians” had uncharacteristically lost its first four games at home, all the while winning three straight on the road. The team was to play its next game at home. Instead of meeting at the usual 5:30 pm time for pre-game meal, Miller told Morningstar to “get their asses down here at 3 o’clock sharp. Tell them to wear their road uniforms.” Morningstar never questioned Miller. No one was more loyal.
Dressing in their team room, Miller ordered them outside into the travel vans. He and ‘Star drove both vans all over Alamance County. Then, back in the gym lot, he coached them to go get dressed, eat, and come back and play like you are “on the road.”
Elon had great teams under Coach Miller. The fans wondered what he’d do next.
Players, too!
Once the van stalled on the railroad tracks. Miller goosed the ignition, while admonishing, “don’t none of you bastards move.”
Grr! Grrr! Then a train whistle. Here came the Norfolk Southern, balling the jack. No one moved. Finally, moments before the 80 m.p.h. train knocked the van over a power line, Miller relented “Every man for himself.” Morningstar was in that van.
Miller cancelled a game with Campbell University and Coach Danny Roberts: “There’s a dangerous snow up here, Danny.” Really it was a snow job. Elon had four starters with the flu.
Administration, faculty, students, fellow coaches all had a Miller story. If you meet one, ask ‘em.
Perhaps my favorite was from Bill Bowes. Bowes was typical of most freshmen in the early ‘60’s. Fresh, tender, white, and about to confront his coach. At 6’7” Bill started his first game. It was home, in Alumni Gym. Packed house for rival High Point College coached by Jerry Steele, 6’9” Hall of Famer.
On his first college play Bowes said that as he battled for the rebound under High Point’s basket, he inadvertently tapped it in….for High Point.
Embarrassed, then stunned, as he saw Coach Miller bound off the bench calling “Time out,” just before grabbing Bowes in the center circle.
Miller walked his puzzled freshman center right up to Coach Steele and said “Steele, this Son of a Bitch is knocking them in for you guys. Let him sit his ass on your bench.” And plopped Bowes in to an empty chair.
One player resented being called an S.O.B. and requested a conference with Miller; telling his coach he objected to him insulting his parents. Miller paused ever so briefly, and according to Morningstar concluded. “You are right. I’ve met you parents and they are really fine people. I guess you’re a self made Son of a Bitch.”
Morningstar swears that when he and high school teammate, Chip Connors, tried out for Miller and Elon, Miller recruited them thusly: (He was in his Boxer Shorts) “Well if you two Sons of Bitches want to come to Elon, I’ll give both scholarships. If one of you only wants to come, I’ll give that Son of a Bitch a scholarship. If neither of you comes, I’ll go find me two more Sons of Bitches.” He walked out.
With my fondness for characters, I delighted in Miller at conference games, when he or I scouted, or at tennis matches.
Actually at tennis matches we rarely watched tennis. The routine went about like this if we were at Elon: He’d always give me something, a shirt, a film of a game I played in, some shoes, or something. He’d then give the balls and the scorecard to his “captain.” Miller didn’t know but one player’s name, his “captain.”
Then we’d go back to his office, or the gym and talk basketball, for a while. Then we’d ride to Huey’s BBQ for a “gratis” sandwich. We’d be in his pickup and when he finished his beer, he’d left hand the can out the driver’s window into the truck bed. It had a lot of beer cans in it.
If we played in Wilson he was trapped at the courts. One sunny March day he started taking off cloths. Got down to his pants only. I thought he was going to keep going so I asked him a question.
“Coach, did you see the All-East basketball team in Sunday’s News and Observer?”
Integration was in full bloom and Eastern NC High Schools had a particularly good crop of talent.
“You got that paper?” he asked.
“Its over at the library? Wanna go?”
I walked him over. I owed him many favors, plus I was afraid he’d strip.
The librarian at Hackney Library was Irene Harrell. She was a tough one. I asked her if she’d let us see this particular issue. “Sure” and she brought it to the reference desk.
Miller located the sports section, then the All-Star page. He simply ripped it out of the paper and walked out the door. I didn’t go in the library for a long time, and Mrs. Harrell never spoke to me again.
Miller was so colorful, people tended to look over his virtues. While intense as a coach, he was just as intense as a friend. Almost always people would cite his generosity and kindness to less fortunate community people.
Bill Morningstar said he’d use the team to pick strawberries and pass them around the town and campus. Need your swimming pool cleaned? Call Coach. Years after his departure, good deeds were revealed. Mostly when he made an attempt to be anonymous in his generosity.
I was moved to hear two incidents revealed by a former football player, Prince Deese, on his induction into the Elon Athletes Hall of Fame.
Obviously Prince was a fine young man. He did the perfunctory task of thanking his football coaches. He then told of his relationship with Miller.
Prince said he was an oddity at Elon his first year. A black kid, and very limited in ability. He only knew Miller as someone who didn’t like Blacks. He’d never met him.
One day he got a call from Coach Miller saying he’d heard Prince liked to fish. Prince agreed to meet Miller in front of his dorm, 4:30 am, the next morning. They rode to a local pond in the dark. It was very cold. Very little was said. Coach Miller lent Prince the proper tackle and they fished. Prince got his lure caught in a tree that hung out over the water. He couldn’t untangle it. And Coach Miller ignored him. Finally, Prince said, “Mr. Miller, what should I do about the lure?” Miller responded, “ Get your black ass out there and bring it back.”
Aghast Prince contemplated his options.
Before he could act, Miller stripped, shoes up to waist, waded out waist deep and threw the loosened lure back to Prince.
They fished frequently without anyone’s knowledge until now. Once, as they were coming home from a successful day, Prince felt brave. Brave enough to ask Coach Miller what he saw when he looked at Prince” “Whadda ya mean?”
“Well, I’m quite black, and we always listen to that gosh awful country music. Couldn’t we play some ‘soul’ once in a while?”
Miller reached across Prince’s midsection and started opening his door. They were running about 50 m.p.h. Miller tilted back, still driving, and started trying to push Prince out of the right side with his foot. “You don’t like my music, you can walk your ass home!”
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I began to wonder what “tools, techniques, behaviors the late Coach Miller would have cited as deterents to his coaching:
In Coach Miller’s time you almost had to be a “mean man coach” to get a job. Almost all of his peers were tough cookies. None I ran into could challenge Bill. “He would make coffee nervous.”
If the choice is between a vaccination and death, the choice seems simple. If a group of people make a stupid choice in this case, their number will lessen.
Want “hardball politics”? So be it.
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The Little Green Book of Tennis 