Category: HUMOR/ ODDS AND ENDS

TEAM SPIRIT

On By ethomasparhamIn E. SPORTS COMMENTARY, H. WILSON, HUMOR/ ODDS AND ENDSLeave a comment

BULLDOG

At midseason 1979  I promised my team I would paint my car in the new school colors if we won 25 matches.  (25/3 ! ).  I took it to STEVE’S CORVETTE with the instructions to paint it royal blue and white, with a thin gold trim–as these were the new choices.  

It was really my wife’s car and when we picked it up and she saw TWO FOOT GOLD STRIPES,  she dropped  to her knees and cried.  I only laughed and blurted,  “… it looks like a Pepsi ad.”

Looking at the front end  one can see a blurred silver hood ornament.   It is a 10 inch Mac truck

Bulldog hood ornament— Our team’s mascot.  

Earl Boykin and some Tanquaray gin affixed it to the hood, in between laughing at it. 

It was easily unique and people knew where I was  (“ You’ve been spending a lot of time at the ELK’S Club, Coach ).   When I rode around Wilson, NC most cars would blow their horn or surely someone would wave.  Religiously,  I would wave back.  

After a few years I changed jobs.  So we painted THE BULLDOG a pleasant green.  

Before moving to the new town,  I waved at a lot of people that didn’t wave back.

MAN TO MAN OR ZONE?

On By ethomasparhamIn HUMOR/ ODDS AND ENDS, S. FAMILYLeave a comment

Tee called last night.  He wants to know if he can get some help with his 10 years old basketball team.  Maybe one of the Odom boys.  

There are nine players.   Son Lennox warned his Dad on the way to the first practice :  ” … Four of these kids are crazy!”

Coach Tee spoke about 15 seconds before “the worst of the four” emptied his water cooler on the floor.  Tee said “the four” have never since acknowledged that Tee  was there.

Luckily 1.  The other five are pretty good, And 2, the gym has two goals. 

The  4 took off to goal 2.   Tee’s 5 worked hard interrupted by several fights and obscene language from the 4 goal.    Tee admitted seeing one 4 kick a wet floor pylon that drew blood from another.  

He also confessed he told his five— I will bring them up to play.  Beat them bad.

Worst 4 beat best 5.  Worst of the 4 hit the winner.

Team vote on team name —BOULDER MAYHEM.

Russell Rawlings is coming tomorrow.  He is not only a four graduate, but revelled in coaching them.  He’ll help.  

COLLEGE RUBICON?

On By ethomasparhamIn E. SPORTS COMMENTARY, HUMOR/ ODDS AND ENDS, J. EMERALD ISLE, L. RACELeave a comment

Great birthday card — Front:  This is Edith ( beautiful Pin-Up ) and this is your cake ( Giant slice with a lighted candle ). 

Inside :  “You can have your cake, or you can have Edith–but you can’t have your cake and Edith too!”

As the man said–It is time to make some “chawses” ( Choices )

The just released survey by the Elon Poll requested solutions to college athletics problems.  Between the Portal and Likeness changes,  a Rubicon moment,     Teaming with the NCAA, they listed ten pages of questions and suggestions to summarize  how to reign in this “conundrum”.

Some years back I played in a local poker game with John McQuire, brother to Al,   and poster for Octogeneran Curmudgeons.  Occasionally he would blurt out angry admonitions to shut up and play.  Upon enduring  one cliched dissection of the past hand,  and it’s theories and what-ifs,  John concluded “… NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING! “

Apt description of the above Elon/NCAA poll.  

What seems apparent is that a square peg- round hole problem is at the core. 

Education and greed don’t jibe.  The POWER conferences have made their choice.  The rest may too “ante up “.   Hopefully some avenue to EDUCATION as a choice will emerge.  Some are already available.

“Bad luck women stick like glue.  You can have one or the other, but never the two.”  B. Dylan

Tech Tics

On By ethomasparhamIn HUMOR/ ODDS AND ENDS, J. EMERALD ISLELeave a comment

Losing can be hellish. I envisioned Hell as sports losing. Seated in a black, damp room, hell was being forced to repeatedly hear the sound of a second tennis serve hitting the net. Alernately silence is hell , as a 2 foot golf putt is “pulled”.

Lately I have wondered about some issues unrelated to sports. So, at 85 years I googled my symptoms:

“…characterized by multiple movement (motor) tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic. Common tics are blinking, coughing, throat clearing, sniffing, and facial movements. These are typically preceded by an unwanted urge…”

NOTE: With an impressive list of personal health issues , I am sensitive to sufferers.

The quote above appeared under the definition of Tourette’s Syndrome.

Reflecting on my symptoms, while similar, I realized the problems developed in concert with my attempts to use new technology. Daily, while trying to find a password, add a new skill or remember an old one, I would turn into Mr. Hyde : Angry, screaming, retching. violent unsolicited jerking, blinking and throwing things.

Eventually I realized I was and am experiencing a new syndrome I have decided to define as

“Tech Tics”.

ANCIENT AGE

On By ethomasparhamIn HUMOR/ ODDS AND ENDSLeave a comment

Your kids don’t want your “stuff ” ( See George Carlin ). I only owned two pairs of dress shoes in my life–Johnson and Murphy tassle loafers. One truly observant Alumni noticed them after twenty years : “Coach, is that the same pair of shoes you wore in 1970?” Bullseye.

Cleaning out my “stuff” yesterday I noticed the surviving J&M’s. Pair 2 has a quarter sized sole hole. The “Shoe Nazi ” in Burlington, NC estimated repair at more than I paid for them. One of my offspring wears the same size shoe. Don’t even ask.

There is precedent .

My apartment was broken into in 1968. The front and back doors were left wide open. It didn’t take long to inventory my posessions : Nothing was deemed worthy of stealing.

SO—-THE JUKE BOX ( Below is from PLAY IS WHERE LIFE IS by TP).

NOTE—While tempermental, this ” ancient ” (71 years old ) 1954 classic still will blast 45’s worthy of neighborhood complaints.

While a professed “Minimumalist”, the College gladly accepted my considerable Bob Dylan collection.

Now to find a proper home for an old friend.

The Juke Box

“CHAWSIS”

On By ethomasparhamIn HUMOR/ ODDS AND ENDS, I. ELONLeave a comment

Upon retiring I asked wife-type, Margaret , WHERE? Answer–BEACH! We both liked the shore and she grew up on Lake Huron. She reasoned “…yes, but mainly I know the kids will visit us there. And eventually bring my grandchildren to me. “

The Raleigh family and the Boulder family were here last week. Somehow we have retained the tradition of family meals together. And , for a while, the young ones remain for after dinner conversations. The oldest grandchild had just graduated from Boulder High School, and while I was unable to attend, I watched via ZOOM.

I commented that the speaker made a fine talk. Then someone asked who spoke at my college graduation? I do remember the speaker’s name and title. Yet I had to admit being among the “overserved RWL ” –participants common to college students the night before graduation. Or, I was hungover from RUN. WALK. LAY DOWN booze.

Sitting on the aisle seat I began to drift. Proximity classmates later laughed about the snoring

The tassle on the “mortar board “was put into motion as my own snoring whiplashed me semi conscious. I thought the tassle was someone trying to enter our aisle and knocked the “funny hat” into the next row.

That was it. My classmates who witnessed this scene and sounds could hold on no longer. Raucus laughter erupted from our area —and the unnamed speaker stopped, wondering what was funny about what he had just said?

Margaret is self effacing but I guess she felt the need to offset my confession. Asked about her rememberances- she told of being the class speaker at her graduation from nurses training . When some one asked what she talked about she said, “from MARKINGS by Dag Hammarskjold : Goodness is something so simple…Always to live for others, never to seek ones own advantage”.

Son Dan was next. After saying that no one in class could remember anything but the theme the speaker chose –CHAWSIS. “You are going to have to make some CHAWSIS ( Choices)” . Dan said “…thirty years later his class mates still remember.

On a very serious note—This speaker should have the stage now. SAPIENS by Yuval Harari got a lot of attention years back. Followed up by HOMO DEUS, I have followed him as best I could. Now NEXUS is out and I am trying to grasp his prescient admonitions. Two things jumped out at me: 1. This book is deeper and tougher to absorb. 2. He is less optimistic now and is telling us why.

Artificial Inteligence has a very dangerous potential. We must prioritize the choices we must make.

From a review of NEXUS:

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI–a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?

Time to vote!

Chawsis !

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can” (John Wesley )