I'M CLEAN, SO CLEAN, SIGN ME UP

With Sen. George Mitchell's report on steroids and human growth hormones hot in the news right now, please allow me to put something to rest. I'm completely clean. Always have been.

Wait, a minute; that's not right. If they ever did a sugar test, then I'm afraid I wouldn't pass. I always chewed bubblegum when I played. Even in college intramurals. Even when our first baseman/pitcher chewed tobacco. He was married, too.

But it was still no problem for me. I was not tempted. To chew, that is. Marriage was tempting and I fell prey not long after college fast pitch. But I still chewed gum.

Steroids? I don't think so. It was a few years after my career ended except for wiffle ball, that steroids made the news. With the death of Lyle Alzado, a great player for the Raiders. He made it till he was 43. So I honestly thought all the steroid use dropped off after that. I mean Alzado was a man! For a brief time. Then he shriveled and died. When will they ever learn?

Human growth hormone? I thought that was milk. Guess not. Again, it was before my time, but I don't think I would have been interested. You see, I didn't care all that much for milk.

So unless they test for sugar (actually my sugar or glucose level was perfect on my last physical, but I haven't played baseball for a long time now), I'm clean. Now what position could I play?

Never mind. I'm afraid I'd be as out of it as ALF. And if anyone would take a flyer on me, it'd probably be the Cubs. If that were my only choice, well, I'd sit that season out.

THE GAME OF COOTIE

I like board games. Always did. Oh, I'd rather be outside, but when rain or darkness prevented, I'll take a good board game. Monopoly is my all time favorite even though it requires a huge time investment.

But I liked Cootie, too. It's where I first learned the term proboscis. It's kind of a cool word. I assume it's where we get the term nosey for sticking one's proboscis (probing) into someone else's bees wax as we used to say as kids. Well, one neighbor kid said it anyway(s).

Having a small nose, I never knew why some hated having a large schnoz. I remember Jimmy Durante as an old man: he of famous huge honker, but this may be the first picture I've seen of him in his younger years. I assume the girl is wearing a nasal prosthesis making fun of him.

Once in high school, actually she was in high school and I was in junior college, I knew a girl with a very large beak. I know, that's not nice, and I would never have said that around her or to anyone who might have allowed that comment to get back to her. I was kinda sensitive back then. But one night at The Mug,(a drive-in MTV known throughout the state) I was with a bunch of guys who pulled up beside her and some girls. Nice girls, but one of the guys I was with was not.

Without any provocation, without any hint of what he was going to do from the backseat with rolled down windows, Bob the Beast loudly announces, "Nose, Nose, anything goes. Your nose turns into a water hose."

I couldn't have sunk any lower into the shotgun seat where I was riding parked next to the car of girls. "Let's get out of here, " I begged the driver, but Sieg was laughing way too loud, way too long.

Time stopped. I wanted to disappear as in the commercial by Southwest Airlines, "Ever wish you were someplace else?" You bet. And, with a lot of my stories, there's no denouement. That's it: that's all I remember about the incident. Except I still think back about that when someone talks about a big nose. Or someone wanting to get away.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

"You didn't play a musical instrument in high school?"

"Naugh. I was on the ballfields too much."

"Yeah, that's right. I remember." "But how did you get to be a sissy when you didn't play an instrument in high school?"

I just laughed when it was my turn to respond to a buddy of mine who initiated the conversation.

Friday night we had been to the Arizona Opry in Apache Junction for our Adult Bible Fellowship, which is our hip way of saying Sunday School class, Christmas party. The key performer was a guy formerly of The Tokens who sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". He was outstanding showing his musical talent by playing approximately 30 different instruments. All but strings or drums.

And my buddy and I were impressed. At intermission, he was talking to me about his trumpet playing abilities when he posed the question.

I guess I could have gotten mad at him for his insinuation. Maybe I should have decked him. I mean we are in the Old West. But he's bigger than I am, and I'm recovering from a broken thumb that was never splinted or fixed and still causes me pain. Plus, I like the guy.

Also, he's probably right. I mean I did teach English. I do like to read. And write. I am a Christian which means I should be gentle and kind. I could add a lot of other qualities I possess that would support buddy Bob's assertion, so I'll just quit before I condemn myself.

I'm just glad he didn't call me a pansy. Them's fighting words.

SO WHO DOESN'T LIKE TO SWING?

I spent a lot of youth time on a swing set. I loved to swing so high that the support poles came out of the ground and threatened to tip over. Climbing on the swing set was good, too. And the slide. But nothing could compare to the swing.

My Dad hung a big door between two trees and we ...nevermind. That was my wife's dad. I always tell that story like it was mine. At least around my sister-in-law. It's kinda like an inside family joke. But it must have been huge and supported with big springs. It held at least three girls and maybe more. They would stand up on it, eat lunch on it, and play all day under the Waltonville or Rend City sun.

I liked to walk on the little beach at Jaycee Lake when I was in high school. They also had some big industrial type swings at the lake. You couldn't tip those and they would swing really high. Or, they were just fun for swinging a girl and talking. Making plans or just being together. Even though there wasn't a whole lot to do in our town, the swings and lake were always good places to take a date.

I had a picture that I used when I taught a creative writing section in a course entitled Basic Comp back in the 70's. Students chose pictures from a box and had to create a scene or story in relation to the picture they drew out of the box. One of my favorites was an elderly man swinging his elderly wife. Their expressions were ones of pleasure. That's what swinging always did for me.

Somehow you could do some good thinking on a swing. Or dump a bad mood. Or just get away by yourself. But most people don't feel the freedom to do that on their own when they get past a certain age. Maybe Frost said it best, if I mis-paraphrase him somewhat from his poem entitled "Birches": "one could do worse that being a swinger..."

SO WHO'S IN YOUR ENTOURAGE?

I've never seen this show. I suspect it's like Deadwood and Sopranos. Those shows on cable tv interested me a lot. Until I tuned in. The language in both kept me from viewing, and I really like Westerns, but I don't think they talked that way back then. I'm kinda serious. I know people today talk differently than we did back when I was young. Certainly in mixed company. Don't forget, I'm from the generation that wouldn't allow Jack Paar to say WC, for water closet or bathroom on tv. Actually, I was quite young when that occurred, but I recall people talking about it.

Don't forget either, at this time you never ever saw Ward and June Cleavers' bedroom, and on the Dick VanDyke Show, Rob and Laura had twin beds. That's just the way it was back then. And yes, in that case times were better. Also, don't forget that Barbara Eden in I Dream of Jeannie couldn't show her navel. Too revealing.

So Entourage will be one of those shows that I click through when I search for something--anything to watch when the brain is gearing down for the day. There seem to be a lot more of those. Last night it got stuck on an old Deal or No Deal and I saw this guy turn down $650,000. Whoa! He did accept the deal when they offered $25,000 more. But lo and behold (I don't think I've ever used that phrase before, and I don't think I will again) his case held $3 million. As Bugs used to say, "What a maroon." Not really. I would have bailed long before that.

But an entourage is a group of associates who surround a person of importance. It can also be used as surroundings only, but I've never heard it in that context. So we are all important. To some one. And who's yours? When you answer that, you will reveal something about yourself. As well as those who entourage you.

INCREDIBLE

So the weather got a little better yesterday. But still wet and still too cold to do much outside. That was no problem. Illinois basketball and SIU football were on tv. It's rare that I get to see two of my favorite teams and schools play.

In the basketball game, it's 18-7 when I turned it on. Illini on top. Then it's 18-16. I should have known. Illinois deserved to lose and they did. In OT. But when your big guy Pruitt can't figure out who his big man to guard is and lets him go weak side on him about four times for dunks, well... And when you shoot 22 free throws and make 10, well... And when with two seconds left in the game and AZ having no time outs, yet one of their brilliant guards tries to call time out right in front of the official and he forgets how to blow his whistle, well... I went Hulk.

Actually I'd gone Hulk sometime after the 18-7 cushion coughed up by the Illini. I didn't turn green, but I turned mean. That's right; I was transformed into a stupid fan yelling at the tv. Some of the brighter comments: "They're free throws. Free. You're supposed to make 'em." "Oh yeah, call the walk now, you goon." "Find somebody to guard. Anybody. Just move around; maybe the ball'll hit you."

It only got better in the SIU game because I had put off moping the floors long enough that I missed most of the game after the Dawgs jumped out to a 10-0 lead. What I did see unnerved me enough to tell the refs the game was being played in Carbondale. Naturally I called for blitz after blitz. I highly questioned a third down call, but overall I thought Delaware a better team, so my Hulk had turned a lighter shade of pale as the 60's song said.

By the time the Suns took the court, I gave them warning. "I'm 0 for 2 today, so the Suns better watch out for the trifecta." Sure enough, the coach played his usual 8, sat capable subs and on the last day of a five game road trip, lost to the worst team in the NBA. I love our coach, but I can't figure out why he can't find more minutes for some of the Suns. So that's about all I yelled at as I watched the good guys get out rebounded and out hustled.

Sports too often bring out the green monster in me. Not just the Hulk. But jealousy. You see, I'm jealous of the success of the AZ basketball program, all the titles the Patriots have won, and the Lakers' following. I'm ready for more successes for my teams. Who only seem to come in second.