AT THE LION FARM

It seems there was a time when there was a lion farm in California. The rider was the owner. Apparently, for awhile he had both arms and legs.

I don't believe I ever heard or saw anyone in real life ride a lion. I think the little kid that hung with one of the Tarzan's rode one in the movie or tv show, but this was a first for me.

There are more dangerous things to do, I suppose, but most of them make more sense than to hop on the back of the king of beasts. I can just hear it now.

"Your Father, son, was killed by a lion."

"A lion?"

"A lion. You see, we owned a lion farm and he was riding it, you know, like a horse, and that stupid lion just threw him off, shook him like a rag doll and ate him up."

Sometimes truth is stranger and stupider than fiction.

MAKE MY DAY

That was a great Eastwood line from a great Eastwood movie. Not that it got to that point yesterday. Not quite.

When it's hot in the valley, it's really hot. Last night when we got home from another DbAx loss, it was still 100 degrees at 9:30. Of course, they opened the roof at the old ballyard to waste lots of air conditioning. It's at least the third occasion this year when I haven't agreed with Those Who Control at Chase Field.

Earlier, in fact much earlier in the day, three of us were stuck behind a slow, slow foursome on the golf course. Having been hitting most sand traps while missing most greens for the past couple of weeks, I wasn't in the best state of mind. The course marshall had already told us that he had told them to speed it up or allow us to play through. They didn't do either. The marshall, in an Obama/Iran mode, also chose to hide or at least turn his attention elsewhere. So we waited.

On the tee box after having avoided the sand on the previous hole, I tried to set up one of our playing partners. "There's a twosome right on our tail. Do you want to let them play through?"

The golfer I addressed has played 100 or so rounds with me. Never has he suggested anyone play through. On only a few occasions has he allowed it at the suggestion of another player in the foursome.

"No," he said, authoritatively. And I laughed. Then he knew. "I'm going ahead and play. If you and Jeff want to let them go through, go ahead. We all drove to the course separately."

His retort broke the tension of having to wait. Which we still did for the rest of the round.

Maybe if someone had just joked with Clint Eastwood...

KEMO SABE AND NAPOLEON

I loved The Lone Ranger. The Masked Man and of course his sidekick, Tonto.

I also loved the Orwell novel Animal Farm. Napoleon and Boxer and Squealer. I loved how ruthless Napoleon took control.

The Lone Ranger and Napoleon had one thing in common: devote followers. Although The Masked Man had only one, he like Napoleon's followers thought he could do no wrong. "Napoleon is always right." That was the motto of the animals after the revolution.

Just imagine if one person in the world thought you were always right. Always.

But as Napoleon usurped his power, The Lone Ranger never did. He was Kemo Sabe, but he respected Tonto and would have died for him. Loyalty was a two way street with him.

I think that's why we love pets. They are so loyal. They think we can do no wrong. They are forgiving even if we forget to walk or even feed them. Unconditional love is hard to come by.

I think I'll name my next dog Sabe. In Spanish, it means I know. Kemo is not a Spanish word, but it must mean friend in Jay Silverheels' language.

AND SO I YELLED MAYBE TOO LOUDLY, MAYBE TOO LONG

I like the way she can blow a bubble and make her lips/tongue look like a heart. We have some flowers that color. They're called bubblegum petunias, I think. I know the bubblegum part, and I know they need lots of water.

But this is a missive on maltreatment. A friend, a wife/friend and I played Troon North Monument golf course yesterday. It's simply one of the best valley courses with spectacular views. It's moderately cool up there, yet we teed off at 6:51 for a 4-hour round.

Nothing great. At least our golf games were typical. Some good shots, some great shots, some missed putts. Some desert searching for errant shots. Some anger--all mine. And then we came to Number 16. A beautiful but long Par 3. 229 yards to a green that is somewhat sunken into the valley, but against a wind. We needed a good score here, because the next hole is a 470 yard par 4. (Which I 3 putted for a 6.)

But on #16, I chose to hit driver. That distance is a little too long for my 3-wood. I tried to guide or baby my driver and left the clubface open resulting in a glancing blow off a good size boulder two hundred yards below.

When we play, we reserve a floating mulligan to be used at any time during the round. Sometimes, we don't use it, but 75% of the time we do. (I've proposed an unused mulligan gets carried over till the next day, but no one seems to share in that belief.)

I still had my mulligan, declared my use of it and swung again. "Get in the hole," I yelled three times. It echoed in the valley as the ball tracked towards the cup.

After my last hopeful repetitious yell, my wife informed me in a correcting tone, "It's already passed the hole."

I was disheartened. To think that she, always my supporter, could be so mean. Then I thought, "So what would I have done?" Would I have claimed a hole-in-one, because I had used my "legal" mulligan? No, I knew I wouldn't/couldn't although I would have recorded a 1 on the scorecard.

It didn't matter. It didn't go in, though it could have and it was close. 2 1/2 feet passed the cup. And yes, I missed the putt because I didn't read enough break.

No ace, no hole-in-3, no birdie w/ mully. No nothing. Only insult to injury. But I'll make it. I'll survive. But if my wife's with me, maybe I'll only plead twice next time.

SO THIS IS TINTERN ABBEY

I remember reading Wordsworth's "Lines (Composed) Above Tintern Abbey." I don't remember a line from the poem, but I sort of liked Wordsworth.

I always thought it a cool name for a poet. He was romantic. I could understand him better than most. I really liked the poem about the fading of love which included the line "splendor in the grass/beauty in the flower". There was even a sappy movie made by that title and I really liked it, too.

We've been to Ireland a few times but I've never seen Tintern Abbey. It reminds me of the climb I made to kiss the Blarney Stone in Cork, Ireland. I think the Blarney Castle was taller, but maybe it just seemed that way since, as said, we had to make the ascent.

Keats, Lord Byron, Shelley, Browning(s), Yeats were some of the other Brit poets that I liked less than Wordsworth. There was another cat named Swinburne who also lost me. I have a feeling that if I went back and read all those guys and E B Browning, that I wouldn't get much more out of them now than I did in the late 60's and early 70's.

I wonder if today's bloggers and twitters will ever be recognized for our efforts. If so, I hope I have used some allusion, some metaphor, some reference that scholars can ponder and tell their students what I meant by it. And act as if they were dullards for not seeing that. Even when I, the blogger, couldn't.

THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

There's drama. There's a story within a story. It's good stuff.

I don't know why it doesn't generate the hype and following that NCAA basketball does. Or even college football where there's no true champion.

Friday night marked the end of the road for ASU. They finished third. It looked as if they were going to get one more shot at Texas in a Saturday game, but they fell short after taking a 1-run lead into the bottom of the ninth.

There had been drama all game, but in the top of the ninth, the home plate umpire took over. Not again; TQ's not going to go crying about the officiating again is he? Yep. With a man on third and one out with the Sun Devils holding on to a one run lead, up to bat came Kole Calhoun, the unsung hero of the CWS. He'd driven in 6 runs the night before. He hit .563 for the Series. He was Everyman. Or at least Many Men. From the looks of him, he seemed to possess no athletic ability. Heavy, short arms, no speed, but lots of heart. And he came to play on the big stage.

He had had 3 hits prior to his at bat. One more insurance run would really have helped. "Strike one," the ump called on a pitch not only low but way outside the strike zone. Two more even wider called balls. But the next two were like the first called strike, so Kole had to swing. He struck out. The next batter lined to second stranding the runner at third.

Baseball maybe more than any other sport is decided by momentum. The momentum swung when with one out, the batter was given a totally different strike zone. Not just on one pitch, but on two. So instead of him being the second out, the batter got a fat 3-1 pitch which he drove deep over the centerfield wall.

Tie game. After another out, the next hitter crushed a change up over the left field wall. Game over/ season over.

Texas vs. LSU in a 3-game series for the national championship. Was Texas better than ASU? Maybe. We'll never know though they did go 2-0 against the Sun Devils. It should be a great series. But I would loved to have seen what they had left in their tank had the umpire done his job. One game for the chance to play LSU.

Did the the umpire cost the Sun Devils that chance? I think so. I wonder if his last name was Denkinger, the Major League umpire who cost the Cardinals the 1985 World Series.

THE BUDDY SYSTEM

I don't remember anyone asking me. I wasn't tempted. But a lot of my buddies were.

The place: Sailor's Cafe on the campus of MTV High and MTV Community College.

The time: Viet Nam War year(s)

The people: college students /

facing the draft.

Me: a 17 year-old/ 18 year old college student

One of my friends had left the day before for his first day of college at SIU, 60 miles away. I went to a few classes and headed to Sailor's for lunch. It would make my third year there eating hamburgers or tenderloins and fries and cokes. Later in the year I would add coffee and cigarettes because there were still high school students frequenting the place and I didn't want to be taken for one of them.

But my SIU friend was there at lunch. He had gone to SIU, seen what a hassle registration was, checked out of his dorm and joined the Air Force. I still don't know how he did all that in one morning and still made it back to MTV for lunch. He must have liked the AF because he was a career man.

Slowly, I would see the college bail outs. They'd go in on the Buddy Plan which guaranteed they would go through Basic Training together. One group of 5 decided to join the Navy on that plan. The irony. The owner of Sailor's son became a sailor.

Those times were something else. You never knew who would flinch, who would be fed up, who would be the next to join. One of my friends joined because he could be inducted on the field at Busch Stadium. A pitcher who had planned to play for the Cardinals did the next best thing, I guess; he was in the Cardinal Command.

I'm pretty sure I could have resisted had a Buddy wanted me to go in with him. It just wasn't that appealing to me. And of all the friends and acquaintances that I had who joined the service or who was drafted, I never knew of one who did so because he believed in that war. Not one.