Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Checking in...
Yes, I'm still here and I have a lot of catch-up blogging to do, but I've been very busy at work and with other school-related stuff, so I haven't had much time to do the "extras." Hopefully I'll soon be able to post about the O.A.R. concert, Missi's trip to Austin, and the joy of grading citation exercises for the journal competition.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
A Thought For Today...
Here's a thought as you contemplate whether the OSU Beavers can repeat as national champions: If your life was a movie and the cameras were constantly rolling whenever you went, what songs would be included in the soundtrack?
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Champions!
It seemed as though this past weekend was spent almost exclusively at the baseball field watching/helping coach Drew's Babe Ruth team. They were playing in their end-of-season tournament, and it was exciting because the boys were playing really well. On Saturday we played at 4:00 and won rather easily, making us undefeated in the preliminary rounds of the tournament. That meant we were the #1 seed and played the #2 seed from our side of the bracket in the semi-finals. This game was on Sunday at noon. After one of our best games of the year, we won and earned a spot in the 4:00 championship game. We learned we were playing our vaunted rival Sheldon. We beat Sheldon in the pre-season, but they beat us during the regular season, and they had gone undefeated since we first beat them. It was a tense game, but the lead we built up in the early innings stood up and we won! The boys were very excited (so were the parents!) and it was a fun way to spend my Father's Day. It was a nice culmination to a fun season.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Flag Football Recap
We had a great turnout for flag football game I organized on Saturday morning. I think it was 8-on-8 and the game was really competitive. We had a good mix of veterans and rookies and I think a good time was had by all. I'm sure we'll all be sore Sunday and Monday! I have already been hearing from a bunch of the guys about how I need to organize one of these games every two weeks!
Friday, June 15, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
A Must-Read
O.K., this is sorta long, but I strongly, highly, emphatically encourage you to read this article. It was originally posted on ESPN.com and it was so good I couldn't just link to it, I had to copy/paste the entire thing. It's a great article...
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HOLY GROUND
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Most everything makes me think about my Daddy, and this morning, of all the stupid reasons to fight back tears in public, it's chipped beef on toast. I'm sitting at the corner table on the clubhouse veranda, waiting for Arnold Palmer to hit the ceremonial first shot of the Masters. Man, my father loved watching Arnie. To do it from the veranda with a plate of chipped beef? Hotty Toddy, brother. Only, the excitement of incredible moments like this is muted for me now. I've learned in the past three years that I did many things solely to tell Daddy about them later.
The crowd stands on Washington Road, waiting for the gates to open. For a moment, the course is quiet. Birds chirp. Mowers drone. Soon, another lucky diner asks if he can join me. His food arrives first. As we talk a bit, bundled against the chill, he looks at the empty space in front of me.
"What did you order?" he asks.
"Chipped beef on toast," I say. He laughs. "Breakfast of champions," he says.
"It was my dad's favorite meal," I explain.
"Did you ever bring him here?" he asks.
There is a silence. "No," I say, turning away.
Daddy watched the Masters every year. He dreamed of attending just one, and he's always on my mind when I come here for my job. Indeed, for all of us lucky enough to actually walk through these gates, we cannot leave without having thoughts of our daddies, for Augusta National is a place for fathers and sons. Davis Love III navigates the same fairways as Davis Love Jr. New fathers carefully hold toddler hands. "Can you see?" you'll hear them say. Strong arms tenderly steer stooped backs. "Look out, Dad," you'll hear them say softly. That is Augusta.
When Jack Nicklaus finished his final round ever at the Masters, his eyes welled on the green. He glanced at his son, who was caddying for him, and repeated his own father's last words, "Don't think it ain't been charming." As Jack ended his relationship with this special place, he looked at his son and thought of his father. That is Augusta.
When Tiger Woods won for the first time, his eyes searched the gallery near the scoring shed for Earl Woods. They hugged, Tiger's head cradled on his father's shoulder. And when he walked off the green almost a decade later, and Earl Woods was no longer there, Tiger remembered that shoulder and he mourned. That is Augusta.
This, too, is Augusta: me, needing a daddy more than ever, finishing the chipped beef on toast, walking the grounds in search of fatherly wisdom. Me, a 30-year-old man, who failed in my promise to bring Daddy to this place he longed to visit, unable to control my emotions when I see a father and a son standing by the first fairway. The boy is a half-head taller and growing. Both wear blue Penn State gear. I see myself in that boy, standing with his father, both thinking they have all the time in the world.
The First Tee
We were a father and son in my dad's imagination before my parents even knew I was a boy. On the day I was born, he sat down and wrote a letter to himself, cataloging his thoughts as his first child came into the world. He called me his son, with daughter written each time in parentheses, just in case. When I arrived, before my mother even cleared her head, he had already filled out the birth certificate. There was never even a discussion of what I would be called. "Walter Wright Thompson, Jr.," he wrote.
Walter Wright Thompson, Sr. had grown up in the Mississippi sticks with three brothers. Many of the traits my friends would recognize in me came from him. He loved to be the loudest guy in the room, and he loved telling stories, and hearing them, too. He loved his favorite places to eat beyond any normalcy and the sound of the ocean and the hum of late-night conversation. He loved working hard.
His own dad was a tough man with unfulfilled boyhood dreams. Nothing was good enough. When my Daddy, a star quarterback, would run for three touchdowns and throw for two more, Big Frazier would be waiting after to ask why he'd missed that tackle early in the third quarter. Daddy decided that when he had a son of his own, he'd do it differently. He'd give his whole heart, shower all the love and attention and approval he could muster. He would be a good daddy. A sweet daddy.
I remember tailgating before Ole Miss football games, him throwing passes just far enough away that I'd have to dive. I remember Destin, Fla., when I dropped my favorite stuffed animal, Sweetie, and didn't tell him until we got back to the condo. He spent hours looking for that rabbit, and he found it, too. I keep it around, but I don't ever tell anyone why. When I look at it, I can feel how much he loved me. I remember skipping school to go fishing, and I remember promising not to tell Mama. I remember him always reminding me that "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" and "if it feels wrong, it is." I remember him taking me to see "Superman III" the night it opened, even though I was in trouble; I remember watching "The Guns of Navarone" a thousand times with him. And I remember, as clear as if it happened yesterday, that April day in 1986 when Jack Nicklaus charged toward his sixth green jacket.
I was playing in the other room, probably with that G.I. Joe aircraft carrier, when he called my name. I didn't want to go. He called again. So I went into their bedroom. He was lying on his stomach.
"Jack Nicklaus is going to win the Masters, son, and you've got to watch this. You will remember this for the rest of your life."
So we lay there, my feet only coming to his knees, watching. I was 10. He was 40, six years younger than Jack, and he cried when the final putt went in. I can't remember now if I'd ever seen him cry before.
The years slipped away, but every April, we lay down on our stomachs — tumbuckets, he called 'em — and oohed over the azaleas and aahed over Amen Corner. Each time, he'd smile and mention that, one day, he'd sure like to see what such a place must look like in person. He grew older. I went to college and, as a freshman, called him to ask if he was watching this kid named Tiger Woods. He was. I sat in the Phi Delta Theta house three states away. I could picture him lying on his stomach.
Home didn't feel so far away.
The Front Nine
It has been 10 years. I no longer watch the Masters on television, and I pinch myself each time I get the credential, though I try to hide it. Sportswriters are supposed to act jaded, right? I'm sitting right now with colleagues in the press center interview room. Tiger Woods is at the dais, no longer the kid he was a decade ago, either. Normally, he's full of boring blather, using a lot of words but carefully saying nothing. Only now he's talking about fathers and sons, about losing one and gaining another. I lean in a bit. He talks about regret, and the things he wishes he'd done. He talks about what kind of parent he'd like to be.
"Here I am, 31 years old," he says, "and my father is getting smarter every year. It's just amazing. But hopefully, my child, down the road a little bit, will say the same thing."
That, to me, is the definition of growing up. There comes a time when every son starts the slow transition to father. Mine began four years ago. My dad felt pain and went to the doctor. A scan revealed cancer. He was 57 years old, with marriages to attend and grandkids to spoil. Instead? He was in a fight for his life. He pulled into a parking lot on the way home and read the report. It said something about the pancreas. He understood he was in trouble. Up a creek without a paddle in a screen-bottomed boat, he'd say.
But the man had never backed down. Once, in college, he knocked out an All-SEC football player for messing with his brother. He attacked this disease just as viciously. After the first chemo session, he stopped at a greasy fast-food chain to get a sack of sliders, an f-you to the poison. To walk through a hospital with him was to understand his gift for life. All the nurses and doctors and patients — especially the patients who sat through the treatments alone — called him by name. For each, he had a kind word and a smile. He raised the energy level of every room he entered.
We took a fishing trip he'd always wanted to take. I knew there wasn't any time to waste. We spent a glorious few days on a river in Arkansas, filling our cooler with trout, talking late into the night. "I'm not afraid," he told me. Before leaving the fishing camp, I made a reservation for a year later. This, he said, we had to do again. "We'll be here," he said, almost whispering. "I guarantee it."
Back home, he spent hours alone, at his spot behind the house. There was a canebreak out there, and a brick wall, and tall oak trees and a creek. He'd sit there, long past sunset, and he'd think about his life. It's where he prepared to die. Once, my mom pointed out toward his silhouette, tears filling her eyes and running down her cheeks, and said, "It just breaks my heart. I think he's scared."
Still, he read the right books, by preachers and by Lance Armstrong, and he'd make damn clear he didn't want to know the odds. So we didn't tell. But we knew. And they weren't good. I wept the first time I Googled pancreatic cancer. What would I do without a daddy?
Only, sometimes, it does happen like in the movies. He responded to the chemo. The doctors saw the tumors shrinking and, finally, a scan revealed he was cancer free. We couldn't believe it. He didn't act surprised.
Of course, I was at the Masters when we got the news.
Daddy and I made immediate plans for a vacation. We'd go back to Destin, where he'd found my stuffed animal. I bought the tickets and, the day after the tournament, I drove to Atlanta, met him at the airport and, together, we flew south. In the air, I gave him my Masters media credential. He collected them, kept them hanging by his bathroom mirror to remind himself that his son had gone places. He treasured the parking passes, too, and, faithfully affixed them to his truck after I left Augusta.
In Florida, we sat in lounge chairs by the ocean. We ate quail and grits, and Daddy talked the place into giving us the recipe. We drove in a Mustang convertible with the top rolled back, and we made plans. His reprieve made him realize that he needed to stop practicing law 16 hours a day and do those things he'd always dreamed of doing. He wanted to visit China, stand above those gorges. He wanted to see Tuscany, rent a villa.
Mostly, he wanted to go with me to the Masters.
"It's a done deal," I told him. "Done deal."
We celebrated his birthday. I picked up dinner, the first and only time I ever did that. We laughed, and I gave him a present: a black Masters windbreaker. He held it up before him, glanced at me, words failing. He slipped it on and went outside to read. I shuffled off to bed. With the cancer gone, time was no longer precious; we had all the time in the world. But something made me take one last look, seeing him sitting on the balcony, thin and pale, the waves crashing somewhere out in the blackness, a thin ribbon of smoke rising from an ashtray.
The Turn
Three months later, I got the call. I was in Pittsburgh for a Chelsea-AC Roma soccer game. Mama was crying. They'd run some tests and the results were in.
"It's cancer," she sobbed.
Two months later, he felt bad and went to the hospital. The doctors weren't too worried. Mama and Daddy asked, "Do we need to call the boys?" Love is a strange thing — you go from a fraternity dance to the altar of a church to a cold hospital room, asking: Is one of us about to die? The doctors said no.
They were wrong.
As I sat in Kansas City, watching the movie "Miracle," my father passed away. It was only a few days away from our return fishing trip. My mom didn't want to tell me until I got back to Mississippi, so she made what had to be the toughest phone call of her life. After watching her husband of 34 years take his final breath, she called me and said it didn't look good and that I needed to bring a suit. I refused to pack funeral clothes, holding out hope.
The next morning, I landed in Memphis and took the escalator down to the baggage claim. I saw my brother, William, at the bottom. I smiled and waved. He just shook his head. At that moment, my mother stepped out from behind a sign. I knew.
"Your sweet daddy died," she said.
I dropped my suitcase and cell phone. Someone got them, I guess. The next moments are fragments. A parking garage, a silent car, relatives, pats, looks away, driving, buildings, thirst, I'm really thirsty, could someone please get me some damn water, traffic, interstate on-ramp, off-ramp, driving. I could only get out one question.
"Was he scared?" I asked.
Mama shook her head no.
The funeral week was a blur. When we picked out his favorite Zegna sport coat, I went into his bathroom, holding those Masters credentials in my hands. I took them out, slipping them into the jacket pocket. If there was an Augusta National in heaven, I wanted him to get in.
"I'm sorry, Daddy," I said to the air, "you didn't get to go."
Seven months later, I was back at Augusta. It was a hard week. I wore a pair of his shoes around the course, trying to walk it for him. I wrote a column about it for my newspaper and, as I'm doing now, tried to find some closure. Then, I believed my grief ended with the catharsis of the last paragraph. I was naive, as I found when I returned to Augusta in the coming years, finding my pain stronger each time.
Exactly a year after he died, my family gathered at home. We had a baby tree, grown from an acorn that came from the sturdy oaks in Ole Miss' legendary Grove, where Daddy spent so many happy afternoons. We gathered at the spot where he'd sat, where he'd made his peace, and we dug a small hole, filling it in with the roots of the sapling and potting soil. I carefully patted down the earth around the stalk. Then it was done.
That night, I couldn't sleep. Outside, rain poured down, soaking the tender roots. It rained an inch, then two, then more. The creek rose. I worried about my Daddy's tree, so I went to stand guard. Soaked, cold, shivering, I stood by the tree, protecting it as I'd been unable to protect him.
I stared out past the canebreak and the brick wall and the creek. The sky was black. I wondered if Daddy was looking down on me, watching me, seeing my successes and failures. I wondered if he was proud of me. I wondered if there was a way I could still ask questions and he could still give me answers. I'd always counted on him for the answers.
"Daddy," I said aloud, "are you out there?"
I waited, but I heard no answer, just the shattering windows of water falling from the sky.
Amen Corner
Maybe I'll find those answers out here, at this place he loved so much. Is that crazy? Nothing seems crazy to me anymore. The grass shines like polished green mirrors. The flowers explode with a rainbow of shrapnel: pinks, purples, whites, yellows. Mostly, though, I see the fathers and sons, like the Livelys from Charleston, W.Va., sitting in front of me, watching the par-3 tournament. For 15 years, he'd entered the lottery for practice-round tickets. This year, he won, and he took his two sons out of school for a day. I wanted that to be us.
Down by Ike's Pond, television reporter Jim Gray interviews players as they leave the course. He asks what I'm working on, and when I tell him, he nods, pointing to a white-haired man sitting in the sun by the water. It's Jerry Gray, his father, and for 16 years, he's come with his famous son to Augusta. "It's the only week we spend together all year," Jim tells me, and, again, I'm jealous. It doesn't seem fair. Sometimes, a boy needs a daddy.
I just got married about a year ago, and I knew he'd have loved to stand up at the front of that church. In a way, he was: In the pocket of my tuxedo, I carried his yellow LIVESTRONG bracelet and, as Sonia started down the aisle, I rubbed it once, just to let him know, if he was watching, that he might be gone but he wasn't forgotten.
I just bought my first house, and I knew he'd know whether I wanted a 15-year balloon. What's a good interest rate? How do I pick a neighborhood? What is PMI?
I'm thinking of starting a family of my own someday, and I want to know how to be a good daddy. What should I let my son do? What should I tell him about crossing the street? About sex? How do you remove a splinter without making him cry? How to make him love you more than life itself? I know he'd know the answers, especially to the last one.
So I've been looking. I try to find messages, things he might have left behind to lead me down the right path. I know he thought like that. For months after his death, my mother found flashlights in every room of the house. Big ones, small ones, medium-sized ones, all with fresh batteries. Then she realized: He'd put them there for when he was gone, in case she got scared in the dark, all alone.
Every now and then, I'll discover something prescient. I have the note he left me when I visited him for what turned out to be the last time. There is a quote: "To influence people, appeal to their dreams and aspirations, not just their needs." He wrote in blue ink: WWT, Jr, We are so glad to have you home for a few days. Love, Daddy.
Or the prayer he read at his last Thanksgiving, when we all still believed. Maybe he knew differently, for he wrote, to himself at the bottom: "What a great prayer for all of us this Thanksgiving day, and for all the tomorrows none of us can take for granted."
But those small whispers and nudges are rare, so I try to find bits of wisdom and the comfort of his presence in the places he loved. I eat at The Mayflower Café in Jackson, Miss., I stay at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C., and now, I've come here, to this wonderful, ageless cathedral, walking up and down the perfectly manicured fairways, hoping to find a father. I walk up No. 10, crossing 15 near the grandstand, working back and forth through the pines, making my way toward Amen Corner. He first told me about it. The most amazing place in golf, he'd say reverently. Maybe he'll be here. Maybe he knows his son is lost.
I climb the bleachers, find a spot to sit alone. As I did standing on that rainy night by the small tree, I try to talk to him. There are things I need to ask. How do you be a father? Are you proud of me?
"Daddy," I whisper, "are you out there?"
Something amazing happens. Understand that I don't believe in stuff like this and am certain it is a coincidence … but, as the words are leaving my mouth, from across the course, a roar rises from the gallery, breaking the silence, the voices collecting into throaty applause, moving through the pines until it fades away, silence returning to Amen Corner.
The 18th Green
Golfers come and go. As the sun warms my face, Jim and Jerry Gray climb the bleachers. They watch a few groups move through and, as they walk away, Jim carefully holds the rope up so his father can slip beneath it. It's a touching moment, something a good son should do for his dad.
Watching this, I realize something. Although I relate to Jim, I also hope that someday, my boy will do the same for me. It's the way with fathers and sons. The hole in your chest after losing your daddy never gets filled. You don't get a new father. You become one yourself, and my transition from son to father is nearing completion.
I walk back. As the clubhouse gets bigger on the horizon, I see a dad and his boy standing near the 10th fairway. Both are wearing golf clothes. I see myself in that father, hoping he can mold his boy as his own daddy molded him.
It occurs to me that all my questions have already been answered. I've been shown how to be a daddy. I just need to throw passes a little long so he'll have to dive. I need to make sure he doesn't lose his stuffed animal, and I need to take him fishing and I need to make him promise not to tell Mama. I need to make sure he knows that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and that if it feels wrong, it is. I need to watch "The Guns of Navarone" with him. And I need him to lie next to me, on our tumbuckets, as I explain about a golf tournament in April in Georgia, about Amen Corner and Jack Nicklaus and I need to tell little Walter Wright Thompson III that his grandfather was a great, great man.
The clubhouse is in front of me now, and I have one final task. Once I bought my Daddy shirts and windbreakers. On this afternoon, I have something different in mind. I hurry into the cavernous golf shop, past the framed posters and women's clothes to the back of the store. This is unfamiliar territory. I search the wall for the things I want, and I ask the clerk to take them down.
I buy a tiny green Masters onesie, then I pick out a small knit golf shirt, for a toddler. I have one just like it, so, someday in the next few years, when I finally become a father myself and continue this timeless cycle, my son (daughter) can have a connection to this place that's meant so much to me.
At the counter, the woman takes off the tags. When she sees the cute little clothes, she coos. Her words make me hopeful.
"Oh," she gushes, "good daddy!"
Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. He can be reached at wrightespn@gmail.com.
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HOLY GROUND
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Most everything makes me think about my Daddy, and this morning, of all the stupid reasons to fight back tears in public, it's chipped beef on toast. I'm sitting at the corner table on the clubhouse veranda, waiting for Arnold Palmer to hit the ceremonial first shot of the Masters. Man, my father loved watching Arnie. To do it from the veranda with a plate of chipped beef? Hotty Toddy, brother. Only, the excitement of incredible moments like this is muted for me now. I've learned in the past three years that I did many things solely to tell Daddy about them later.
The crowd stands on Washington Road, waiting for the gates to open. For a moment, the course is quiet. Birds chirp. Mowers drone. Soon, another lucky diner asks if he can join me. His food arrives first. As we talk a bit, bundled against the chill, he looks at the empty space in front of me.
"What did you order?" he asks.
"Chipped beef on toast," I say. He laughs. "Breakfast of champions," he says.
"It was my dad's favorite meal," I explain.
"Did you ever bring him here?" he asks.
There is a silence. "No," I say, turning away.
Daddy watched the Masters every year. He dreamed of attending just one, and he's always on my mind when I come here for my job. Indeed, for all of us lucky enough to actually walk through these gates, we cannot leave without having thoughts of our daddies, for Augusta National is a place for fathers and sons. Davis Love III navigates the same fairways as Davis Love Jr. New fathers carefully hold toddler hands. "Can you see?" you'll hear them say. Strong arms tenderly steer stooped backs. "Look out, Dad," you'll hear them say softly. That is Augusta.
When Jack Nicklaus finished his final round ever at the Masters, his eyes welled on the green. He glanced at his son, who was caddying for him, and repeated his own father's last words, "Don't think it ain't been charming." As Jack ended his relationship with this special place, he looked at his son and thought of his father. That is Augusta.
When Tiger Woods won for the first time, his eyes searched the gallery near the scoring shed for Earl Woods. They hugged, Tiger's head cradled on his father's shoulder. And when he walked off the green almost a decade later, and Earl Woods was no longer there, Tiger remembered that shoulder and he mourned. That is Augusta.
This, too, is Augusta: me, needing a daddy more than ever, finishing the chipped beef on toast, walking the grounds in search of fatherly wisdom. Me, a 30-year-old man, who failed in my promise to bring Daddy to this place he longed to visit, unable to control my emotions when I see a father and a son standing by the first fairway. The boy is a half-head taller and growing. Both wear blue Penn State gear. I see myself in that boy, standing with his father, both thinking they have all the time in the world.
The First Tee
We were a father and son in my dad's imagination before my parents even knew I was a boy. On the day I was born, he sat down and wrote a letter to himself, cataloging his thoughts as his first child came into the world. He called me his son, with daughter written each time in parentheses, just in case. When I arrived, before my mother even cleared her head, he had already filled out the birth certificate. There was never even a discussion of what I would be called. "Walter Wright Thompson, Jr.," he wrote.
Walter Wright Thompson, Sr. had grown up in the Mississippi sticks with three brothers. Many of the traits my friends would recognize in me came from him. He loved to be the loudest guy in the room, and he loved telling stories, and hearing them, too. He loved his favorite places to eat beyond any normalcy and the sound of the ocean and the hum of late-night conversation. He loved working hard.
His own dad was a tough man with unfulfilled boyhood dreams. Nothing was good enough. When my Daddy, a star quarterback, would run for three touchdowns and throw for two more, Big Frazier would be waiting after to ask why he'd missed that tackle early in the third quarter. Daddy decided that when he had a son of his own, he'd do it differently. He'd give his whole heart, shower all the love and attention and approval he could muster. He would be a good daddy. A sweet daddy.
I remember tailgating before Ole Miss football games, him throwing passes just far enough away that I'd have to dive. I remember Destin, Fla., when I dropped my favorite stuffed animal, Sweetie, and didn't tell him until we got back to the condo. He spent hours looking for that rabbit, and he found it, too. I keep it around, but I don't ever tell anyone why. When I look at it, I can feel how much he loved me. I remember skipping school to go fishing, and I remember promising not to tell Mama. I remember him always reminding me that "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" and "if it feels wrong, it is." I remember him taking me to see "Superman III" the night it opened, even though I was in trouble; I remember watching "The Guns of Navarone" a thousand times with him. And I remember, as clear as if it happened yesterday, that April day in 1986 when Jack Nicklaus charged toward his sixth green jacket.
I was playing in the other room, probably with that G.I. Joe aircraft carrier, when he called my name. I didn't want to go. He called again. So I went into their bedroom. He was lying on his stomach.
"Jack Nicklaus is going to win the Masters, son, and you've got to watch this. You will remember this for the rest of your life."
So we lay there, my feet only coming to his knees, watching. I was 10. He was 40, six years younger than Jack, and he cried when the final putt went in. I can't remember now if I'd ever seen him cry before.
The years slipped away, but every April, we lay down on our stomachs — tumbuckets, he called 'em — and oohed over the azaleas and aahed over Amen Corner. Each time, he'd smile and mention that, one day, he'd sure like to see what such a place must look like in person. He grew older. I went to college and, as a freshman, called him to ask if he was watching this kid named Tiger Woods. He was. I sat in the Phi Delta Theta house three states away. I could picture him lying on his stomach.
Home didn't feel so far away.
The Front Nine
It has been 10 years. I no longer watch the Masters on television, and I pinch myself each time I get the credential, though I try to hide it. Sportswriters are supposed to act jaded, right? I'm sitting right now with colleagues in the press center interview room. Tiger Woods is at the dais, no longer the kid he was a decade ago, either. Normally, he's full of boring blather, using a lot of words but carefully saying nothing. Only now he's talking about fathers and sons, about losing one and gaining another. I lean in a bit. He talks about regret, and the things he wishes he'd done. He talks about what kind of parent he'd like to be.
"Here I am, 31 years old," he says, "and my father is getting smarter every year. It's just amazing. But hopefully, my child, down the road a little bit, will say the same thing."
That, to me, is the definition of growing up. There comes a time when every son starts the slow transition to father. Mine began four years ago. My dad felt pain and went to the doctor. A scan revealed cancer. He was 57 years old, with marriages to attend and grandkids to spoil. Instead? He was in a fight for his life. He pulled into a parking lot on the way home and read the report. It said something about the pancreas. He understood he was in trouble. Up a creek without a paddle in a screen-bottomed boat, he'd say.
But the man had never backed down. Once, in college, he knocked out an All-SEC football player for messing with his brother. He attacked this disease just as viciously. After the first chemo session, he stopped at a greasy fast-food chain to get a sack of sliders, an f-you to the poison. To walk through a hospital with him was to understand his gift for life. All the nurses and doctors and patients — especially the patients who sat through the treatments alone — called him by name. For each, he had a kind word and a smile. He raised the energy level of every room he entered.
We took a fishing trip he'd always wanted to take. I knew there wasn't any time to waste. We spent a glorious few days on a river in Arkansas, filling our cooler with trout, talking late into the night. "I'm not afraid," he told me. Before leaving the fishing camp, I made a reservation for a year later. This, he said, we had to do again. "We'll be here," he said, almost whispering. "I guarantee it."
Back home, he spent hours alone, at his spot behind the house. There was a canebreak out there, and a brick wall, and tall oak trees and a creek. He'd sit there, long past sunset, and he'd think about his life. It's where he prepared to die. Once, my mom pointed out toward his silhouette, tears filling her eyes and running down her cheeks, and said, "It just breaks my heart. I think he's scared."
Still, he read the right books, by preachers and by Lance Armstrong, and he'd make damn clear he didn't want to know the odds. So we didn't tell. But we knew. And they weren't good. I wept the first time I Googled pancreatic cancer. What would I do without a daddy?
Only, sometimes, it does happen like in the movies. He responded to the chemo. The doctors saw the tumors shrinking and, finally, a scan revealed he was cancer free. We couldn't believe it. He didn't act surprised.
Of course, I was at the Masters when we got the news.
Daddy and I made immediate plans for a vacation. We'd go back to Destin, where he'd found my stuffed animal. I bought the tickets and, the day after the tournament, I drove to Atlanta, met him at the airport and, together, we flew south. In the air, I gave him my Masters media credential. He collected them, kept them hanging by his bathroom mirror to remind himself that his son had gone places. He treasured the parking passes, too, and, faithfully affixed them to his truck after I left Augusta.
In Florida, we sat in lounge chairs by the ocean. We ate quail and grits, and Daddy talked the place into giving us the recipe. We drove in a Mustang convertible with the top rolled back, and we made plans. His reprieve made him realize that he needed to stop practicing law 16 hours a day and do those things he'd always dreamed of doing. He wanted to visit China, stand above those gorges. He wanted to see Tuscany, rent a villa.
Mostly, he wanted to go with me to the Masters.
"It's a done deal," I told him. "Done deal."
We celebrated his birthday. I picked up dinner, the first and only time I ever did that. We laughed, and I gave him a present: a black Masters windbreaker. He held it up before him, glanced at me, words failing. He slipped it on and went outside to read. I shuffled off to bed. With the cancer gone, time was no longer precious; we had all the time in the world. But something made me take one last look, seeing him sitting on the balcony, thin and pale, the waves crashing somewhere out in the blackness, a thin ribbon of smoke rising from an ashtray.
The Turn
Three months later, I got the call. I was in Pittsburgh for a Chelsea-AC Roma soccer game. Mama was crying. They'd run some tests and the results were in.
"It's cancer," she sobbed.
Two months later, he felt bad and went to the hospital. The doctors weren't too worried. Mama and Daddy asked, "Do we need to call the boys?" Love is a strange thing — you go from a fraternity dance to the altar of a church to a cold hospital room, asking: Is one of us about to die? The doctors said no.
They were wrong.
As I sat in Kansas City, watching the movie "Miracle," my father passed away. It was only a few days away from our return fishing trip. My mom didn't want to tell me until I got back to Mississippi, so she made what had to be the toughest phone call of her life. After watching her husband of 34 years take his final breath, she called me and said it didn't look good and that I needed to bring a suit. I refused to pack funeral clothes, holding out hope.
The next morning, I landed in Memphis and took the escalator down to the baggage claim. I saw my brother, William, at the bottom. I smiled and waved. He just shook his head. At that moment, my mother stepped out from behind a sign. I knew.
"Your sweet daddy died," she said.
I dropped my suitcase and cell phone. Someone got them, I guess. The next moments are fragments. A parking garage, a silent car, relatives, pats, looks away, driving, buildings, thirst, I'm really thirsty, could someone please get me some damn water, traffic, interstate on-ramp, off-ramp, driving. I could only get out one question.
"Was he scared?" I asked.
Mama shook her head no.
The funeral week was a blur. When we picked out his favorite Zegna sport coat, I went into his bathroom, holding those Masters credentials in my hands. I took them out, slipping them into the jacket pocket. If there was an Augusta National in heaven, I wanted him to get in.
"I'm sorry, Daddy," I said to the air, "you didn't get to go."
Seven months later, I was back at Augusta. It was a hard week. I wore a pair of his shoes around the course, trying to walk it for him. I wrote a column about it for my newspaper and, as I'm doing now, tried to find some closure. Then, I believed my grief ended with the catharsis of the last paragraph. I was naive, as I found when I returned to Augusta in the coming years, finding my pain stronger each time.
Exactly a year after he died, my family gathered at home. We had a baby tree, grown from an acorn that came from the sturdy oaks in Ole Miss' legendary Grove, where Daddy spent so many happy afternoons. We gathered at the spot where he'd sat, where he'd made his peace, and we dug a small hole, filling it in with the roots of the sapling and potting soil. I carefully patted down the earth around the stalk. Then it was done.
That night, I couldn't sleep. Outside, rain poured down, soaking the tender roots. It rained an inch, then two, then more. The creek rose. I worried about my Daddy's tree, so I went to stand guard. Soaked, cold, shivering, I stood by the tree, protecting it as I'd been unable to protect him.
I stared out past the canebreak and the brick wall and the creek. The sky was black. I wondered if Daddy was looking down on me, watching me, seeing my successes and failures. I wondered if he was proud of me. I wondered if there was a way I could still ask questions and he could still give me answers. I'd always counted on him for the answers.
"Daddy," I said aloud, "are you out there?"
I waited, but I heard no answer, just the shattering windows of water falling from the sky.
Amen Corner
Maybe I'll find those answers out here, at this place he loved so much. Is that crazy? Nothing seems crazy to me anymore. The grass shines like polished green mirrors. The flowers explode with a rainbow of shrapnel: pinks, purples, whites, yellows. Mostly, though, I see the fathers and sons, like the Livelys from Charleston, W.Va., sitting in front of me, watching the par-3 tournament. For 15 years, he'd entered the lottery for practice-round tickets. This year, he won, and he took his two sons out of school for a day. I wanted that to be us.
Down by Ike's Pond, television reporter Jim Gray interviews players as they leave the course. He asks what I'm working on, and when I tell him, he nods, pointing to a white-haired man sitting in the sun by the water. It's Jerry Gray, his father, and for 16 years, he's come with his famous son to Augusta. "It's the only week we spend together all year," Jim tells me, and, again, I'm jealous. It doesn't seem fair. Sometimes, a boy needs a daddy.
I just got married about a year ago, and I knew he'd have loved to stand up at the front of that church. In a way, he was: In the pocket of my tuxedo, I carried his yellow LIVESTRONG bracelet and, as Sonia started down the aisle, I rubbed it once, just to let him know, if he was watching, that he might be gone but he wasn't forgotten.
I just bought my first house, and I knew he'd know whether I wanted a 15-year balloon. What's a good interest rate? How do I pick a neighborhood? What is PMI?
I'm thinking of starting a family of my own someday, and I want to know how to be a good daddy. What should I let my son do? What should I tell him about crossing the street? About sex? How do you remove a splinter without making him cry? How to make him love you more than life itself? I know he'd know the answers, especially to the last one.
So I've been looking. I try to find messages, things he might have left behind to lead me down the right path. I know he thought like that. For months after his death, my mother found flashlights in every room of the house. Big ones, small ones, medium-sized ones, all with fresh batteries. Then she realized: He'd put them there for when he was gone, in case she got scared in the dark, all alone.
Every now and then, I'll discover something prescient. I have the note he left me when I visited him for what turned out to be the last time. There is a quote: "To influence people, appeal to their dreams and aspirations, not just their needs." He wrote in blue ink: WWT, Jr, We are so glad to have you home for a few days. Love, Daddy.
Or the prayer he read at his last Thanksgiving, when we all still believed. Maybe he knew differently, for he wrote, to himself at the bottom: "What a great prayer for all of us this Thanksgiving day, and for all the tomorrows none of us can take for granted."
But those small whispers and nudges are rare, so I try to find bits of wisdom and the comfort of his presence in the places he loved. I eat at The Mayflower Café in Jackson, Miss., I stay at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C., and now, I've come here, to this wonderful, ageless cathedral, walking up and down the perfectly manicured fairways, hoping to find a father. I walk up No. 10, crossing 15 near the grandstand, working back and forth through the pines, making my way toward Amen Corner. He first told me about it. The most amazing place in golf, he'd say reverently. Maybe he'll be here. Maybe he knows his son is lost.
I climb the bleachers, find a spot to sit alone. As I did standing on that rainy night by the small tree, I try to talk to him. There are things I need to ask. How do you be a father? Are you proud of me?
"Daddy," I whisper, "are you out there?"
Something amazing happens. Understand that I don't believe in stuff like this and am certain it is a coincidence … but, as the words are leaving my mouth, from across the course, a roar rises from the gallery, breaking the silence, the voices collecting into throaty applause, moving through the pines until it fades away, silence returning to Amen Corner.
The 18th Green
Golfers come and go. As the sun warms my face, Jim and Jerry Gray climb the bleachers. They watch a few groups move through and, as they walk away, Jim carefully holds the rope up so his father can slip beneath it. It's a touching moment, something a good son should do for his dad.
Watching this, I realize something. Although I relate to Jim, I also hope that someday, my boy will do the same for me. It's the way with fathers and sons. The hole in your chest after losing your daddy never gets filled. You don't get a new father. You become one yourself, and my transition from son to father is nearing completion.
I walk back. As the clubhouse gets bigger on the horizon, I see a dad and his boy standing near the 10th fairway. Both are wearing golf clothes. I see myself in that father, hoping he can mold his boy as his own daddy molded him.
It occurs to me that all my questions have already been answered. I've been shown how to be a daddy. I just need to throw passes a little long so he'll have to dive. I need to make sure he doesn't lose his stuffed animal, and I need to take him fishing and I need to make him promise not to tell Mama. I need to make sure he knows that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and that if it feels wrong, it is. I need to watch "The Guns of Navarone" with him. And I need him to lie next to me, on our tumbuckets, as I explain about a golf tournament in April in Georgia, about Amen Corner and Jack Nicklaus and I need to tell little Walter Wright Thompson III that his grandfather was a great, great man.
The clubhouse is in front of me now, and I have one final task. Once I bought my Daddy shirts and windbreakers. On this afternoon, I have something different in mind. I hurry into the cavernous golf shop, past the framed posters and women's clothes to the back of the store. This is unfamiliar territory. I search the wall for the things I want, and I ask the clerk to take them down.
I buy a tiny green Masters onesie, then I pick out a small knit golf shirt, for a toddler. I have one just like it, so, someday in the next few years, when I finally become a father myself and continue this timeless cycle, my son (daughter) can have a connection to this place that's meant so much to me.
At the counter, the woman takes off the tags. When she sees the cute little clothes, she coos. Her words make me hopeful.
"Oh," she gushes, "good daddy!"
Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. He can be reached at wrightespn@gmail.com.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
"An Army Team Lives Here"
One of the things I really enjoy about kids Drew's age is that they are old enough to communicate ideas through speaking or writing, but they aren't so old that they "filter" out thoughts or ideas. Here is a great case in point. I found this sign in Drew's room. He had written it on a piece of cardboard and hung it from his bed:
Translation: "An Army team lives here. No girls allowed only mommy, daddy, and Sam and Alyssa when we have play dates."
Translation: "An Army team lives here. No girls allowed only mommy, daddy, and Sam and Alyssa when we have play dates."
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Thoughts after watching Sports Center
So I watched SportsCenter tonight after watching the Mariners’ come-from-behind victory against the Padres, and then I started washing up a few remaining pots and pans from dinner. While I was scrubbing away, I got to thinking: what does it mean to be an “all time great”? I know, sort of abstract, but it occurred to me that it can a person can be an “all-time-great” in either a subjective or objective sense. In other words, somebody can be an “all-time-great” friend or spouse, but there really isn’t any way to quantify that. There is also an objective sense, and that is most commonly seen in sports. Because I’ve played a lot of sports and continue to love watching/coaching/playing sports, I began to think about how we’re pretty lucky right now to be watching several “all-time-great” athletes.
For example, Roger Clemens won his debut for the Yankees tonight. He has struck out 4,611 major league batters. He is clearly, objectively, one of the “all-time-great” pitchers who has ever thrown a baseball. Besides Clemens, Curt Schilling, who just pitched a no-hitter into the 8th inning for the Red Sox, would probably make everyone’s historical lists of all-time great pitchers. And say what you want about him, but Barry Bonds will likely break baseball’s home run record in the next few months (if not before). In the world of tennis, of which I’m not much of a fan, Roger Federer is generally considered to be the one of the greatest players of all time. Tiger Woods will probably be considered the best golfer when all is said and done. All of these labels are based on cold, hard stats and historical comparisons.
So what is my point to all of this? I guess that I often take it for granted that I am living during an era when we are able to see some of the “all-time-great” athletes. I fail to take a step back and realize the historical significance of what is happening around me, and this likely translates outside the arena of competitive sports.
Enough for now – I’m really just trying to put off doing some boring and intellectually strenuous work on the journal competition. But I should get to that…
Currently listening to: Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie) acoustic show, live in Chicago, IL.
For example, Roger Clemens won his debut for the Yankees tonight. He has struck out 4,611 major league batters. He is clearly, objectively, one of the “all-time-great” pitchers who has ever thrown a baseball. Besides Clemens, Curt Schilling, who just pitched a no-hitter into the 8th inning for the Red Sox, would probably make everyone’s historical lists of all-time great pitchers. And say what you want about him, but Barry Bonds will likely break baseball’s home run record in the next few months (if not before). In the world of tennis, of which I’m not much of a fan, Roger Federer is generally considered to be the one of the greatest players of all time. Tiger Woods will probably be considered the best golfer when all is said and done. All of these labels are based on cold, hard stats and historical comparisons.
So what is my point to all of this? I guess that I often take it for granted that I am living during an era when we are able to see some of the “all-time-great” athletes. I fail to take a step back and realize the historical significance of what is happening around me, and this likely translates outside the arena of competitive sports.
Enough for now – I’m really just trying to put off doing some boring and intellectually strenuous work on the journal competition. But I should get to that…
Currently listening to: Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie) acoustic show, live in Chicago, IL.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Galen Rupp - I feel your pain!
An excerpt from this article on UO track star Galen Rupp caught my eye this morning:
"Rupp's training was interrupted last week when warm weather in Eugene led his allergies to flare up. He spent three days in Florence on the coast, away from the Willamette Valley's notorious grass pollens."
"Rupp's training was interrupted last week when warm weather in Eugene led his allergies to flare up. He spent three days in Florence on the coast, away from the Willamette Valley's notorious grass pollens."
What's Running Through my Head...
Things I’m thinking about right now (or have been thinking about over the past few days):
1.How great the weather is outside (and wondering why I’m inside!)
2.How happy I am for my sister Julie that she married a great guy
3.All of the baseball games I’ll be at in the next week or so – 6 in 8 days!
4.How I’ll be glad that Missi and Samantha return to Eugene on Saturday after being up in Portland for the Nordstrom half-yearly sale since Tuesday.
5.What in the world should I do after I graduate from law school?
6.How I have about 10 projects around my house that I want to accomplish, and only have time to do about 2 of them.
7.How I wish I was going down to Austin with Missi in a few weeks to see our good friends the Zimels.
8.How I should update this blog more frequently…
P.S. I “borrowed” this idea from Amanda’s blog.
1.How great the weather is outside (and wondering why I’m inside!)
2.How happy I am for my sister Julie that she married a great guy
3.All of the baseball games I’ll be at in the next week or so – 6 in 8 days!
4.How I’ll be glad that Missi and Samantha return to Eugene on Saturday after being up in Portland for the Nordstrom half-yearly sale since Tuesday.
5.What in the world should I do after I graduate from law school?
6.How I have about 10 projects around my house that I want to accomplish, and only have time to do about 2 of them.
7.How I wish I was going down to Austin with Missi in a few weeks to see our good friends the Zimels.
8.How I should update this blog more frequently…
P.S. I “borrowed” this idea from Amanda’s blog.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Catching up…
As is my pattern during the summer months, it has been quite awhile since my last update. Scarcely a day goes by that I don’t think to myself, “I need to write about this in my blog…” alas, it takes time to write these things out and doing so often gets pushed down the priority list. But here is what has been going on:
My younger sister Julie got married this weekend. She married a great guy named Brian Salwasser, and we are so happy for both of them. We went up to Portland Thursday night and visited with my sister Jessica and her family from Alaska. The kids had a “camp out” with Grandpa in the backyard (see more on this below) and Missi helped organize Julie’s bachelorette party. I drove up to Vancouver on Thursday night to work on a slideshow I was creating for the wedding with my future brother-in-law (now he is my brother-in-law!). On Friday we ran some errands and had the rehearsal. The wedding took place at Peoples Church in Vancouver, the church that Brian had been attending since grade school. Drew was a ring bearer with my nephew Trevor and Samantha was a flower girl. I’ll post some pictures later but I haven’t had a chance to download them to my computer yet. The wedding was on Saturday afternoon, and it went really well. Missi was a co-matron of honor with my older sister Jessica and I was an usher. It was a real honor to escort both of my grandmother’s and my mom down the aisle. The ceremony was great and fortunately there weren’t any tech glitches that got in the way of the slideshow. Creating the slideshow was part of our wedding gift to the new couple and I put A LOT of time into it (probably 30-40 hours). It ended up being about 8 minutes long and showed pictures of Julie and Brian growing up, photos of family and friends, and then some shots from their relationship. At some point I may try to throw it onto Youtube and post it on my blog. The reception was held in the reception hall of the church and was a lot of fun. Missi and I were the unofficial emcees of the reception, which was fun. It was also great to see so many old friends who I hadn’t seen for a looong time. Julie and Brian left that evening for their honeymoon in Jamaica, and we are so happy for them and wish them the best as they begin their life together. Here are a few pics I used in the slideshow.
Moving on…The journal competition has come to a close. As I may have mentioned in other posts, I was one of the main organizers of this year’s competition and I felt good about how it turned out. We had a good turnout and now begins the tedious process of grading and tabulating all of the materials. While I wouldn’t say that developing the materials was as difficult as competing, it certainly was a challenge and I’m glad that we were able to pull it off.
On Memorial Day our family was in Portland. Drew really wanted to go camping since so many of this friends were doing that. To appease him and to hopefully create some memories, we staged a “camp out” at my parent’s house. They have about a half-acre lot and we set up the tent way in back so it felt like we were really out in the woods. My parent’s were great – building a campfire for us, cooking breakfast for everyone, etc…We had Missi’s sisters Ella and Elizabeth with us and it was a really great time. Missi and I didn’t sleep very well (owing in large part to the high school party going on next door and to the fact that we were sleeping on a slope), but it was still a fun experience.
Another highlight of Memorial Day Weekend was Missi’s grandfather Ralph Hillier’s birthday party. There was a party at his home in Beaverton and it was good to see a lot of the Hillier family members. Here is a picture of him lighting the “piñata cake” that Missi’s step-mom Cyndy made for the occasion.
Now that summer is officially here, I’m working full-time at the same job I had last summer. The new group of clerks has not arrived yet since they haven’t been given a security clearance, so I’ve been pretty busy “holding down the fort.” I often enjoy working in solitude, but it will be nice to get some help with the many projects I have waiting for me. I’ve also been spending a lot of time in court watching the sentencings of the defendant’s who perpetrated a series of arsons throughout the West from 1995 – 2001. These crimes were committed under the mantle of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. The proceedings have been exceedingly interesting both factually and legally, and the courtroom has been packed with observers and media. You can read more about it here and hear about it here.
Drew’s baseball season is quickly drawing to a close. His team has done really well, racking up a record of 12-3. They are in first place and I would describe this as a “growing season” for Drew. He is one of the youngest guys on the team and he has struggled at various times, especially at the plate. I had to umpire a game last week when the real umps didn’t show up, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to call my own son out twice for striking out (it wasn’t as bad as “real” baseball – each hitter gets six pitches from a pitching machine. Drew fouled off a few and missed a few so he, and everyone else, knew he was out after the six pitches). That experience certainly gave me a new-found appreciation of umpires.
Summer has also brought the unpleasantness of allergy season here in Eugene, a.k.a. the pollen capital of the world. Because of the copious amounts of grass seed grown in the Willamette Valley, our town consistently has high pollen and grass seed levels. If you see me around town sneezing or rubbing my eyes, you’ll know why.
My younger sister Julie got married this weekend. She married a great guy named Brian Salwasser, and we are so happy for both of them. We went up to Portland Thursday night and visited with my sister Jessica and her family from Alaska. The kids had a “camp out” with Grandpa in the backyard (see more on this below) and Missi helped organize Julie’s bachelorette party. I drove up to Vancouver on Thursday night to work on a slideshow I was creating for the wedding with my future brother-in-law (now he is my brother-in-law!). On Friday we ran some errands and had the rehearsal. The wedding took place at Peoples Church in Vancouver, the church that Brian had been attending since grade school. Drew was a ring bearer with my nephew Trevor and Samantha was a flower girl. I’ll post some pictures later but I haven’t had a chance to download them to my computer yet. The wedding was on Saturday afternoon, and it went really well. Missi was a co-matron of honor with my older sister Jessica and I was an usher. It was a real honor to escort both of my grandmother’s and my mom down the aisle. The ceremony was great and fortunately there weren’t any tech glitches that got in the way of the slideshow. Creating the slideshow was part of our wedding gift to the new couple and I put A LOT of time into it (probably 30-40 hours). It ended up being about 8 minutes long and showed pictures of Julie and Brian growing up, photos of family and friends, and then some shots from their relationship. At some point I may try to throw it onto Youtube and post it on my blog. The reception was held in the reception hall of the church and was a lot of fun. Missi and I were the unofficial emcees of the reception, which was fun. It was also great to see so many old friends who I hadn’t seen for a looong time. Julie and Brian left that evening for their honeymoon in Jamaica, and we are so happy for them and wish them the best as they begin their life together. Here are a few pics I used in the slideshow.
Moving on…The journal competition has come to a close. As I may have mentioned in other posts, I was one of the main organizers of this year’s competition and I felt good about how it turned out. We had a good turnout and now begins the tedious process of grading and tabulating all of the materials. While I wouldn’t say that developing the materials was as difficult as competing, it certainly was a challenge and I’m glad that we were able to pull it off.
On Memorial Day our family was in Portland. Drew really wanted to go camping since so many of this friends were doing that. To appease him and to hopefully create some memories, we staged a “camp out” at my parent’s house. They have about a half-acre lot and we set up the tent way in back so it felt like we were really out in the woods. My parent’s were great – building a campfire for us, cooking breakfast for everyone, etc…We had Missi’s sisters Ella and Elizabeth with us and it was a really great time. Missi and I didn’t sleep very well (owing in large part to the high school party going on next door and to the fact that we were sleeping on a slope), but it was still a fun experience.
Another highlight of Memorial Day Weekend was Missi’s grandfather Ralph Hillier’s birthday party. There was a party at his home in Beaverton and it was good to see a lot of the Hillier family members. Here is a picture of him lighting the “piñata cake” that Missi’s step-mom Cyndy made for the occasion.
Now that summer is officially here, I’m working full-time at the same job I had last summer. The new group of clerks has not arrived yet since they haven’t been given a security clearance, so I’ve been pretty busy “holding down the fort.” I often enjoy working in solitude, but it will be nice to get some help with the many projects I have waiting for me. I’ve also been spending a lot of time in court watching the sentencings of the defendant’s who perpetrated a series of arsons throughout the West from 1995 – 2001. These crimes were committed under the mantle of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. The proceedings have been exceedingly interesting both factually and legally, and the courtroom has been packed with observers and media. You can read more about it here and hear about it here.
Drew’s baseball season is quickly drawing to a close. His team has done really well, racking up a record of 12-3. They are in first place and I would describe this as a “growing season” for Drew. He is one of the youngest guys on the team and he has struggled at various times, especially at the plate. I had to umpire a game last week when the real umps didn’t show up, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to call my own son out twice for striking out (it wasn’t as bad as “real” baseball – each hitter gets six pitches from a pitching machine. Drew fouled off a few and missed a few so he, and everyone else, knew he was out after the six pitches). That experience certainly gave me a new-found appreciation of umpires.
Summer has also brought the unpleasantness of allergy season here in Eugene, a.k.a. the pollen capital of the world. Because of the copious amounts of grass seed grown in the Willamette Valley, our town consistently has high pollen and grass seed levels. If you see me around town sneezing or rubbing my eyes, you’ll know why.
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