With only one grandchild I don’t get as much time to comment, as some other grandparents.    Andre Parham lives in Boulder, Colorado.  His Father, Tee  Parham, hooked us up with SKYPE ( now FACETIME).   Andre thought we “”…lived in the box.”    They visit our beach home in  the summer mostly.   At age 5  Andre and I “skyped”  about his interest in golf.  Lots of golf plans for his summer visit.  I  cut down an old putter to meticulously fit a five year old beginner.  Golf pro, Harvey Penick,  advised starting young golfers “…from the cup back.”   As  I waited at the putting green for Andre,  I placed about a dozen balls in a circle, up close to the cup ( so he could “…experience immediate success”).   After helping him line up,  I watched him putt the first ball.  IN!    However he then spied an  inch worm near the next ball.  He put down the putter and watched “inchy” do his thing.    He asked if we could take the worm back with us?   Sure.  I picked up the “shag” balls and his putter, so we could “…take him back to the ocean with us.”

Dr. Jo Watts Williams, “MATRIARCH EMERITUS”,  Elon  University,  said kids today  (as always)  need time to “…look for lizards.”

Coach Ron Smarr and wife, Becky invited us to play golf in Georgetown, S.C.   The old municipal course (  Wedgefield Plantation ) is a treasure.   The endearing feature that attracted me was the tons of beautiful old LIVE OAKS trees.   My wife caught me staring at the trees,  trance-like:  “… what are you thinking?” she puzzled.  ” Tuddy ( Sterling, now) Webster and I  would have climbed everyone of these trees daily”.

I  don’t see kids climbing trees today.  Maybe TARZAN movies encouraged us to climb and yell.  Famous  Physcial Educator,  Jesse Feiring Williams,  said climbing was one of mankind’s natural activities.

Tuddy and I roamed the banks of  the recently befouled Dan River.  I never pass an empty grassy lot that I don’t speculate that it would be a good field for our pick-up football games.

Tuddy and I  aren’t climbing many trees now days.  He is struggling with health issues.   But we fell out of enough trees to toughen up.

FROM BOB DYLAN’S “NETTIE MOORE”:

” I loved you then,  and ever shall.  But there’s no one left to tell.  The world has gone black before my eyes.”

 

PS.  Otis Ritter was the best tree climber I EVER  witnessed.  By far.

 

 

 

 

Being a sports fan and a life-long North Carolinian, my induction into the N.C. Sports Hall of  Fame was a true “life-time high-light”.   My picture is next to Micahel Jordan.  I keep waiting for someone to ask me “…who is that guy next to you in the Hall of Fame?   Anyway it is cut, I am proud to be among these familiar legends,  some I happen to know.  One support that aided my selection was revealed later to me.   Senator Sandy Sands and his wife, Jenny, became FRIENDS  as “tennis parents”.  Our son, Dan Parham, and Andy Sands, were in the same age group.  And among the best players.  They played often.   Senator  Sands, as a member of the NC Sports Hall of Fame selection committee, told that group this, about  of one of their matches.   Andy twisted his ankle pretty badly.  I had taped a zillion ankles, so we took some time out while I taped my son’s opponent.  I asked Dan recently if he remembered the match, or who won,  as I, frankly, had forgotten it.   Dan, too, had forgotten.  Thanks, Senator.  Those were fun days with your family.

Here are some of the legends  I grew up admiring:  “Choo Choo” Justice,  Dickie Hemric,  “Bones” McKinney, “Peahead” Walker, Jim Beatty, Dave Sime, “Meadowlark” Lemon, Arnold Palmer, Richard Petty,  Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Leon Brogden, David T. and MJ.  Sam Jones,  Jerry Richardson,  and other greats.

And some  I was fortunate to know:   Alan White, Jerry Steele, Dave Odom, Jack Jensen,  Dean  Smith, Charlie Adams, Mary Garber, Jack McKeon,  Jim Mills,  “Big House” Gaines, Walt Rabb, Dr. Leroy Walker, Lou Pucillo,  Terry Holland, Herb Appenzeller, Woody Durham, Danny Talbot… .  Some Wilson, N.C.  BROTHERS:   This year—the Godfather–Lee Gliarmis, and Carlester Crumpler, Bill Brooks, Tom and Bill Davis, Coach Harvey Reid.

Marshall Happer is to be inducted in May.  Great Choice.  Allen Morris, “BO” Roddey, Whit Cobb, and North Carolina’s TENNIS  MATRIARCH,  Mildred Southern, represent N.C. tennis’ great history.

Not everybody, but a gym full of the best.

The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in Raleigh, N.C. museum of sports treasure.  Visit it.  AND SUPPORT IT.

James Michener was a paperboy. He related this approximate event. One older woman never tipped him. Occasionally she would tell him that a nice gift would come at Christmas. As a poor preteen his imagination ran wild. With great anticipation he delivered the Dec.25 copy. She met him at the door and handed him an envelope and closed the door. As soon as he was out of sight he opened the package. Would it be money? Nope. Four sheets of mimeograph paper. What?
Michener  goes on to portray his awakening as to the true worth of being able to copy that many handwritten items that would lead to his writing development.
Ah, Technology in my day. It does change fast. And being left behind is troublesome.
Michener again: In discussing the early boat building days the observation was made that boat builders had their own nomenclature. A language, Michener reveals to be not complicated for insiders, but designed to protect the boat builders and their industry. Hmm. Sound familiar?
Paul Newman defined the POONA LAGOONA bird as a fowl that “…flew rapidly in ever diminishing circles until it flew up it’s own rear end.”
At 75 years old, and a luddite, I fight daily to decipher the modern day “boat builders” language. They are not very helpful. They certainly don’t want to talk to you.
“Customer Service” is an oxymoron.
If wisdom comes with age, I’m about to peak. I have attempted recently to share my gathered expertise for purely altruistic reasons. Daily I suffer having doors shut in my face by technology: Try for a week to find one simple button they seemingly have hidden. My tasks could have been cut by 3/4 using Michener’s mimeograph paper.
I wonder about a couple of things. How many older people with something to offer, have silently said “chunk it” to technology? And also to the “…first ones now who will later be last”, if you only have cheaper, easier, faster on the horizon? For your own survival.

To all students, and parents of students I helped get into colleges and universities–please mail checks now.

“…get all the good players  you can get in legally.  After recruiting is complete coach the hell out of those you wound up with.”   Macky Carden, football coach, Elon College, circa 1985.

and, same source, “…  em ole coaches will find some loopholes. boy.  Let me tell you!”

College football bowl game profits go to the schools and bowls.

The NCAA makes tons on March Madness basketball.  They have loosened  some transfer rules.  It remains to be seen how this works out.  Certainly how to properly govern the “paying of the players” will merit attention.

Some recent ploys include 1. one and  done . 2. International  athletes.  3. Finding high profile substitutes willing  to transfer to a “lesser” school.  4. Mid year recruits. 5. More red-shirting.

I could not believe it when a division 1 basketball team  openly played an ineligible player in this early season.

A large number of players, great students, graduate from one school early, and with a year of eligibility remaining.  Transferring after graduation they can go to a different school, get an advanced degree and continue to play.

Should we label them DONE AND ONE?

Is it possible to house big time college athletics (with market values), philosophically within the purview of American higher education?

Today’s article by George Will  (College basketball season begins under odiferous clouds) includes a quote from Michael Oakeshott :  ” To try  to do something which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting enterprise.”

After anvil-izing the yankee quarter-master for quirting Newt, Captain Woodrow Call reasoned: I hate rude behavior in a man. I won’t tolerate it. (LONESOME DOVE)

At age 75 the subjects of death and dying are frequent visitors to my peer’s conversations.
We are not unknown. This week was no exception with all the ads for hearing aids, AARP jitterbugs, Rx choices, and of course, the funeral opportunities.
These are pretty much the same, with two clinchers: You don’t want to be a burden to you family, and/or, you don’t want them to shoulder what is your responsibility.
Very logical and everyone seems to agree.  If so –then why not follow that same logic before your big day. The same people, it seems to me would want to spare the same family and friends the horrible options that seem unavoidable in the dying process. The exorbitant cost and frightful pain. No one wants either. Pay 80% of what you have saved to doctors, hospitals, insurance and pharmaceutical giants, while you knowingly, or not, suffer and outsource suffering to your loved ones?
I guess it is possible to die in a unique way. A more probable end, though, has surely been one suffered before,  and many times.
Try this on:  A kinder route would be a medical profession that designed a choice process for us. Just as the Right to Life choices offer some peace of mind, as well as the funeral pros.   Maybe an “easy button”.
When that time comes, you and your doctor discuss where you are and what are the next steps. I want the choice when my trusted physician says that “…this is next, or soon, and it is horrible,” to avoid useless expenses, family crippling demands, and ridiculous pain and indignation for all. EASY BUTTON TIME.
We need a registry of information that gives us the most dependable news, good or bad, on which we make OUR decision.

“If  you are grateful at the end, you win.”  Tom Parham