Five Pars and Two Eagles

Above: Out of bounds at Pagago.
The fifth hole at Papago Golf Course saves the best for last. The hole is a standard par four; a good drive leaves you with @ 150 yards to the hole. The green is a beauty. It’s lies 50 feet above your second shot with all of the rise coming within 15 yards of the green. As you stand in the fairway the green looks like a lazy letter J with the hook of the J in the left-front side of the green. The stem of the J, is the center and right side of the green, which is narrow and is protected by two large, deep bunkers. Pin placements are as follows: a front pin is in the hook of the J in the left front. The bunkers aren’t in play unless you push your shot to the right. The back and middle pins are in the stem of the J and dare you to fly the large, deep bunkers. The green rolls and pitches. There are few, if any, straight, flat putts.

Yesterday’s pin placement was a middle pin. The pin was placed farther left than normal so a player who drove far right had to fly the bunkers. I hit the green with my second shot, a rarity regardless of where the pin is placed, and strolled confidently toward my putt. Rain during the night and week left course wet and the grass thick and clutching. The air was ripe with dew and had the consistency of a damp sponge.

Climbing the hill and reaching the green, I heard the piercing cry of a raptor. I looked up to see two, very large, golden brown beauties land in a eucalyptus tree. They squabbled over position on the tree and then they settled nicely on branches once the seating order was established.

I stood over my birdie put and hit what can only be described as a miserable putt. While walking toward my second put I looked up and saw that one of the birds had drawn a bead on something near the green. I stood over my second put and stroked a second putt that was equal to or less than the quality of the first. In an act of mercy toward me, playing partners gave me the third and so I picked up and headed toward the back of the green grumbling about my bogey.

As I am walking toward the back of the green, the large golden brown bird flashes by and lands on top of the jackrabbit that was grazing not ten yards from where I stood. Talons raised, the great brown bird either didn’t have enough speed, misjudged the size of the jack, or the jack did a quick two-step because the jack got away. Great bird stood there, incredulous, with me 10 yards away.

Great bird was bigger than I first figured. It’s head was the size of a tennis ball. It’s stood regal and fearless. I said to my playing partners, “boys we’ve got a golden eagle here." Great bird, now eagle, wasn’t interested in me. He was standing on the ground looking through the creosote. Jack made a sudden move. Eagle took off and never rose 10 feet off the ground, he dove between to bushes and this time he didn’t miss. Jack was for breakfast.
 

Spent the weekend at La Paloma in Tucson, a beautiful resort nestled in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains. This view was two steps outside of our room. The developers did a nice job of settling the resort amidst the desert. Lori spotted a bobcat stroll in the desert just outside our room. I went to look for it but the brush was too heavy to do any serious following. The local birds were very upset, chirping and schreeching distress signals to all their feathered friends. So bobcat must have been close. The above shot shows a late afternoon monsoon storm crossing the Catalinas and heading for the Old Pueblo, Tucson. 

Caution: Attempted Art Shot: A long, covered archway at La Paloma. It occurs to me now that the shot would have been artsier if the shot had light spilling through the arches making for some cool light and shadow play. D'Oh! 

Back at the Big Ballpark

Miguel Cabrera, the brilliant young leftfielder for the Marlins is standing on first base; he's in the black jersey. Cabrera is on both fantasy teams, He's hitting @ .340 for the year. He had two hits last nght. The Marlins are a good, young, athletic team. Cabrera and 2nd baseman Castillo are worth the price of admission on their own. Castillo combines with shortstop Gonzales to form as good a middle infield as you'll find in the game. 

Chopper outfielder Juan Pierre is the dude whose half way between first and second. He's attempting to steal 2nd base but was gunned down by D-Back catcher Snyder. Later, Pierre made amends by swipping 2nd cleanly in the Marlins romp over the lethargic D-Backs. 

Back at the Big Ballpark this time on the corporate dime. Yup, we sat in the company seats. Aurora, goddess of the dawn, smiles a ray of golden sunlight on the boys as they take their hacks during batting practice.  

Requiem Aeternam

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Kyrie eleison,
Christe eleison,
Kyrie eleison

My father died 44 years ago today. You see him smiling, vibrant. He lives on smiling, vibrant. He had a heart attack while playing golf on a sunny, summer Tuesday morning. Newspaper accounts said he watched his drive on the first hole come to a stop and then crumple to the ground. He was playing alone.

I was playing in a little league playoff game that morning. We had another game that afternoon. I was leaving for the afternoon game having just finished lunch. Father Weber, the pastor at St. Gerard, was walking up our driveway. He was a family friend who socialized frequently with my parents. It wasn't extraordinary for him to be visiting. His face was ashen. I greeted him with a smile and wave as I hung my baseball glove from my handlebars. He said nothing and put a hand on my shoulder and guided me back toward the house.

We entered, my mother came to greet him. "Martha Jane," he said, "Phil has been taken ill in Gaylord." Ill? He's sick? He's going to be fine? Right? My young mind raced. My Irish mother began to wail. The banshees wailed along with her. I tried to leave to go play the afternoon game. Father Weber stopped me. "Stay close to home, Sam. You'll be needed." I held out hope that he was sick, that he'd be fine. He'd be home. I locked myself in the bathroom and closed my eyes and mustered my thoughts and my fears and tried to invent a reality in which he hadn't died.

Soon my sister was brought home from her job. I ran to the driveway and told her, "dad had been taken ill in Gaylord." She knew what it meant. She ran into my mothers arms. They wailed. Word spread soon. The house filled with family friends. Father Weber led a rosary and we knelt and prayed for his soul. The world then alternated between vicious high-velocity spins and excruciating moments when time slowed and reality glared directly into a young boy's heart.

A cool hanging tropical plant, sorry the name escapes me, sitting over more yellow lantana. A lantana bush, which has pink and yellow blooms, is to the left. The hanging tropical plant survives in the shade of the bouganveilla, it can't take full day sun. The hanging plants has cool, red blooms. The lantana are very resinous are are big favorite among the flying insect community, which by extension makes them a favorite among the bird and lizard communities who find the insect community to be very tasty neighbors. 

Same pot as the post below in the foreground with flourising yellow lantana in the background. The lantana flowering cycles are a mystery to me. It seems the more inhospitable the weather, the more spectacular the color and density of the blooms. 

It been 112-115 during the day for about a week. Lows are in the 90-92 range. It's hot. It hasn' rained since March. It's dry. The dew point is beginning to inch its way up. Warm wet winds are bring moisture from Mexico and the tropics. We're entering our monsoon season, which brings AZ 25-40% of the annual rainfall. Storms generate during the heat of the day and then roam the deserts and mountains in late afternoon, evening, and during the night. Some storms bring spectacular lightning and thunder events. The vinca, dianthus, and portulacca don't mind the the weather. This pot gets maximum sun, from about 9:00am to 4:00 during the hottest months of the year. The colors and volume of the hardly little guys is amazing. I give them a good soaking every evening during this hot strectch. This is my reward. Thanks guys! 

HBO Mantle Documentary Has Legs

Just saw the HBO documentary on Mantle. It's a must watch for all Mantle-generation baseball fans. Everyone knows the story; there's nothing new, just a tender retelling of Mantle's tale.

I saw Mickey play. My first trip to Tiger Stadium was a Sunday doubleheader versus The Mighty Mighty Yankees. I was with my dad and my cousin Tony. The Tigs swept the Yankees 12-2 in the first game with Frank Lary beating Whitey Ford and 3-2 in the nightcap which featured bench-clearing brawl when Ray Boone took exception to a spikes-up slide into second by Gil McDougal.

My hightlight: We were sitting in the upper deck behind first base. I was using my cousin's binoculars to scope out Mickey, who was kneeling in the Yankee's first-base side on-deck circle. Mick was peering into the stands, no doubt scanning the seats for someone hot, when through the magic of binoculars our eyes met. While our eyes never met, for me they did. I rose from my seat, binoculars glued to my face, stood and waved. Mickey smiled not for me not at me but I didn't know that. I stood transfixed until my dad gently guided me back into my seat. I told him what happened and he smiled and nodded. He knew what happened. I was Tiger fan not a Yankee fan. He was the Mick. He transcended team loyalties. 

 

A Day at the Big Ballpark: A Challenge and a Reward

As you grow older, you never forget the plays you didn't make. Today, at the D-Backs versus Reds game a ball was fouled back and the forces of physics and fate froze the moment and sent the ball directly to my seat and I stood and watched the ball as it travelled to me and I caught the top-spinning foul with a clean two-handed bare-handed basket-style catch and revelled in the applause and adulation of those sitting near us and I smiled and waved to those nearby because I had been given another chance to make a play and I made the play.

We were at the big ballpark today, my brother, my nephew, and me. We were sitting in the third-deck, directly behind home plate. It was if the fates had planned it, the seats were the exact same seats we'd held two week ago when the D-Backs played the beloved Tigers. We were in the sixth inning. The D-Backs were at the plate. The best we can remember, catcher Kelly Stinnett was up to bat. The ball kept rising and sailing. As it rose over the first few rows of the third level the scene was predestined. The play was meant for me. The ball, though fouled with enough velocity to make the third deck, landed cleanly and softly in my hands. I've missed playing the game over the last decades dearly. I loved the game. Yesterday, the game came back to tell me it loves me still. I am pleased.
 

Extreme heat brings out the flowers in our bouganvillea. Temps will be in the 110-112 range today and rising to 114-115 by Tuesday/Wednesday. Once the temperature gets over 108, you can feel the difference. Yes, there's a very real difference between 108 and 110. Will be a tough week for the plants. I may have to change their positions and bring them under cover, much as I would if a hard frost were coming.
 

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in a silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England
[Richard II, 2.1, 40-51]

 

Red Grange: College Football News Calls Him the Best Ever

Red Grange, left, scores one of his first touchdowns against Field Yost's Michigan Wolverines, (who hadn't lost a game in three years), on Oct. 18, 1924, at the dedication game for Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois in Champaign. In the first 12 minutes of the game, Grange ran for 265 yards and scored four times. He had his hands on the ball only six times and left the field before the end of the first quarter. In the third quarter, he returned and ran for the fifth touchdown; in the fourth quarter he passed for his sixth of the day. Illinois won 39-14. Grange went on to become one of the first superstars of the century.

 

Tour de France Means Football's Here Soon!

Tour de France means that football is right around the corner. Hurry up boys and bicycle your way through France. Let's get the season kicked off ASAP. By the way, that's Red Grange and dig his uniform. Nowdays dudes wear more padding to play baseball!
 

Recommendation: Perhaps they'll sing in tune after the revolution!"

Excellent on-the-scene dressing down of the anarchist punks who turn up at socio-political events everywhere. Click on the heading to go to the site.

« Because You Think Poor is Cool; Perhaps they'll sing in tune after the revolution!
Posted by Josh Trevino



Welcome to Edinburgh! Don't make me angry.
The first signs of trouble came as I strolled north toward the Old City of Edinburgh. Interspersed amongst the working Scots of the town were out-of-place youth, dirty, disheveled, and profane; and almost all dressed in black. They ranged in apparent age from their mid-teens, with the girls still sporting baby fat, and the boys striving mightily to grow thin beards; to their mid-30s, at which point they were rangy, ragged, and almost uniformly male. Many carried banners, but none carried signs. They were therefore cryptic figures, intelligible to those not of their kind only as was the rebel without a cause:
"What are you rebelling against?"
"Whaddaya got?"

It's a deeply appealing motto to the juvenile, the witless, and the uninformed: but as maturity and the grim logic of consequences set in, its appeal tends to fade. Reject capitalism? Hate wage slavery? Detest the corporate world? Good luck at the collective, comrade, and sorry your girl left you for the fellow with the Prius. (As mentioned, the more middle-aged didn't appear to have so many women in tow.) Looks like the good life and social conscience can mix, so long as you're willing to sell out just a little. And when selling out is defined as working, obeying local laws, and washing up from time to time, it's damned hard not to.

But the true believers exist, and they are capable of organizing themselves. A counterintuitive thing, one would think, but the anarchist/hard left capacity for assembling at set times and doing set things is a well-proven one. Just like libertarians availing themselves of public services, the contraindicating intersection of reality and ideology is often employed, but never acknowledged. As at Seattle, DC, and Genoa, so too Edinburgh: the city is overrun in a well-planned influx from across the developed, Western, wealthy world to protest developed, Western, wealthy things.

When they say "protest," they mean "smash." The second sign of trouble was the Starbucks at which I was hoping to access some wifi (my bed and breakfast, which purported to have it, turned out to be run by an elderly Scottish couple with an endearingly troubled relationship with technology). It was closed-up and boarded-up. As was the next. As was the next. Several other storefronts toward downtown were as well, but only Starbucks had seen fit to simply shut down all its outlets across town. Starbucks knew it would be a prime target for the young and the restless. It always is: it's successful, ubiquitous, and its product comes wholesale from the Third World, all of which must surely mean it's profoundly evil. Worse, the achingly hip know it, and when they're not dressing in black and smashing its windows, they're ordering tall double lattes and hoping no one calls them on it. So Starbucks gets the full-on treatment, while the local bike shop (Third World rubber) and the local beauty shop (Third World cocoa products) escape comparatively unscathed.

Need it be said, woe betide the coffee producers of the indigenous peoples whom the righteous youth so love should Starbucks ever cease purchasing their wares.

The heart of the Old City of Edinburgh is Princes Street, which runs from the picturesque Edinburgh Castle to the royal palace in a stretch known as the Royal Mile. It was here that I began to encounter riot police in full gear and lines of ambulances, paddy wagons, and squad cars blocking off the thoroughfare. The mood in the park abutting the Walter Scott memorial alongside the street was vaguely festive. Anarchists congregated on the grass, but so did families, and children clambered over the giant seated statue of Scott, whose expression seemed weary and bemused: he'd seen this foolishness before. Police clad in face masks and armor stood in a line through the park, but their stance was casual. Tourists stood beside them and took photos as they waited to be called into action. Action was surely coming: a half-mile down the street was a march from which sounds of drumming could be heard. Well: drumming and giant puppets. Surely the inevitable harbingers of social change. I left the park and resolved to proceed toward George Street, a long block north, and more important, a place where I was hopeful for some wifi-enabled cafes.


Wait till the guys at grad school find out I'm in Hamas.
I walked, and the crowds thickened. To my left, a side street beckoned. Rose Street -- and there was a milkshake stand halfway down. Why not? I could use something to keep mind and body together for a bit, so I strolled down and ordered a shake. The young fellow manning the kiosk and I spoke a bit, neither of us understanding the other much. I pride myself on a small linguistic ability, but Scots English is alarmingly impenetrable at points. Doubtless the Frisians understand it well, though. As I waited, I looked about at the milling crowd. Kids in black, kids in terrorist regalia -- let's not pretend the keffiyeh affectation is anything but -- kids dressed in Soviet flags, kids with Saudi flags, kids with scarves pulled across their faces for the sake of anonymity in violence. And down the lane a ways, more riot police.

Unlike at the park on Princes Street, these police were drawn in a line and ready for action. Their postures were braced: left foot forward, right foot back and turned 90 degrees out, shield to interlocking shield. Before them was a line of police cavalry. These are truly impressive on their massive British steeds, which were themselves armored like so many modern-day knights' mounts. The horses wore plastic visors, some manner of flak jackets across their flanks, and shin wrappings that appeared to be sewn of kevlar. Atop them, the mounted cavalrymen sported similar gear to their infantry comrades, with full-face clear visors and body armor of their own. Unlike the foot soldiers, though, they had no shields -- only batons.

They used their batons readily, clearing out the odd anarchist with the backbone to approach them too aggressively, and marshaling others who more obviously wanted to clear the area. The latter group was regrettably small, and so as the crowd confronting the riot line grew -- I and my milkshake were by now at its front -- the forces of law and order called in reinforcements. These reinforcements, rather impressively, arrived and marched in formation from behind and through the hostile crowd, which mocked and jeered them, but moved aside nonetheless. One of the anarchists began goosestepping alongside the formation, chanting in time: "Ba dum da dum! Ba dum da dum!" It occurred to me then that I was looking forward to the inevitable police charge to clear out these folks. It also occurred to me that I was surely in its way.


My friend Flicka.
As the reinforcements arrived, the foot-based riot line opened to let them in, let the cavalry withdraw behind, and then re-formed into an even tighter set of double ranks. Isn't this interesting. Something's coming. Rotten fruit and garbage, looted from adjacent dumpters, began to fly from the crowd toward the ranks. I dashed in front of the anarchist lines to get a shot of the police formation. A full sack of garbage landed between us as I got my shot; and then the policeman in the center raised his right arm. The anarchists surged forward. I fought my way back and into an adjoining alley. The police charged.

It was a fearsome sight, seeing the lines clash. The outcome was never in doubt: some of the kids were trampled, some thrown bodily back a surprising distance, some fled in pure fear. All deserved it. As swiftly as it began, the police line halted just shy of my alley, having cleared perhaps a hundred feet of Rose Street. The foot soldiers resumed the stalwart stance, and the cavalry trotted up in a line behind. The anarchists were in disarray, with most of the girls screaming, and most of the men assiduously not helping them. Into my alley, some women dragged another woman, this one elderly and evidently in a seizure. She twitched and moaned on the pavement, eyes rolled back into her head, and one of the girls began shrieking at the impassive line of rioters: "Do something! Help her! We pay your salaries! Do your job!" She was immune to irony, and for all I know, the cops were too: they did not move.

According to her companions, the old woman, one of the anarchists, had been thrown into a seizure by the shock of the police charge. Male anarchists walked back up to the police line to berate the cops: "So this is how you treat the elderly! Fascists! I hope you're proud!" A few gathered about the gagging, twitching old woman to take amateur videos of the fruits of police state brutality. Two anarchist women, clad in black but with orange crosses pinned to their shirts, moved forward to render first aid. As they did, the second charge descended.


From the government and here to help.
The rush came in two waves. First, the foot police line split neatly in two and swung in a manner to make Schlieffen proud. They neatly sealed off my alley and the alley across the way; and the cavalry moved up from behind to maintain the ground gained on the main thoroughfare. The crowd began shrieking again -- and then the cavalry charged. I have never seen a mounted charge before, but I certainly hope to again: the sight was profoundly more amazing than the foot charge witnessed mere minutes before. At once I understood the age-old truth of the power of the horseman over the man on foot: a lesson that those of us whose military service was in the modern era have precious little opportunity to grasp. Again the anarchists lost ground as fast as their fleeing feet could take them, and I was sure that the entirety of Rose Street would shortly be seized in the name of the Lothian and Borders Police. But no: passing the alleyways and arriving at a point at which their flanks were secured by solid walls, the cavalry stopped dead.

The foot police sealing me and a platoon of anarchists into our alley opened ranks, and two cops, in full armor but without shields or batons, strode confidently among us. Ignoring threats and curses, they walked to the old woman in seizure, knelt down, and began to render aid. In a flash it became clear why the cavalry had charged as it did: with their flanks and rear secure, the police could render aid. Having been among them long enough to get a sense of their nature, I have no doubt that lone policemen amongst the crowd would have been assaulted mercilessly even in their mission of mercy; now, though, they could do good work unhindered. The anarchists, excepting two, withdrew from the old woman. The couple remaining spoke in low voices to the cops, and they worked together to calm the stricken woman. The rest milled about, cowed and perhaps even shamed.

No, let's not get our hopes up on the shamed bit.

I wandered back down the alley, and found a bit of fencing amenable to being twisted open. I squeezed out and found myself in a different alley, this one looping back toward Rose Street. I was hoping to emerge on a police-controlled stretch; alas, there were more anarchists, hurling trash and screaming profanities. This time, I walked away from the riot line. I walked until I once more saw ordinary Scots trying to make the most of their workday as their city was defiled about them. I walked south, toward some measure of normality and nonviolence. Two anarchist girls, standouts in the throng of regular people, walked alongside me. One complained loudly: "Why is it they're only arresting the hot guys? It's like they're trying everything to make us miserable." I looked over. We made eye contact, and they began to laugh.

Shelby Foote and Chekov and a Time of Better Questions

When you think Shelby Foote, Anton Chekov isn't top-of-mind. Foote, our time's premier Civil War historian and raconteur supreme, is associated with the brutal schism that brought America to arms with itself in the mid-19th century. Foote is a man of belles lettres. His influences are Proust, Shakespere, and Chekov.

To paraphrase Foote, Chekov wasn't interested in the answers to man's difficult questions, he was interested in refining the questions. Fascinating, right? No answers, only better defined, purer, questions. It's the realm of poetry and the heart of spirituality, at least it once was the realm of poetry and the heart of spirituality before pop culture hijacked them and ran them aground. Without poetry and spirit we swirl and twirl between the scylla of instant analysis and quick fix solutions and the charybdis of absolute, lead-pipe, sure thing absolutes built upon the quicksand of hubris.

Click on the title for the delightful interview with Foote. Forewarning: it's three hours long.