MULLIGAN 6

I occasionally play a little basketball in an independent, some call it an Industrial League.  Along with a lot of golf.  But at my advanced age of 32 plus years, I jog as well.

When I jog, my mind does not rest as most do.  I don't clear cobwebs.  Only rarely do I spend devotional time with God.  Instead, I have old or new, meaningful or meaningless songs run through my head.  I guess I'm like a lot of the younger runners who have an earphone or two stuck in the ear hole(s).  I've always been afraid that I might not be able to hear an advancing car or cry for help.

So I do a non-verbal sing.

On November 2, 2008, I ran some old Tears for Fear through my head.  Some old Bryan Hyland and Neil Young.  In fact it was in the middle of "Harvest Moon" when I caught up with Terri.

"Hey, stranger," I almost said, should have said.  But instead, I grabbed around around the waist, easily spun her around and gave her a kiss.

She didn't refuse the offering.

If only it had stopped there on that hill in overcast San Diego.  If only...

MULLIGAN 5

Shelledy took me by the hand and led me down.  I guess if I stopped right there, I would be accurate. 

She led me down to the weight room beneath The Oasis on campus where students'  could take a break, waste time, meet others for study dates, or just hang out.  But the weight room.

The Weighting Room read the bronzed plaque above the door.  Inside, of course, were weight stations ranging from barbells to the huge drum weights that the linemen rolled off and on with ease as they lessened or mored their routine. 

Treadmills,  boring treadmills, were for some reason paired between exercise mats in two places.  The mats served as wrestling mats or gymnastics mats.  I mean, for the times, it was an extensive work out area.

"I brought you here to watch you sweat."

Dressed in a tee shirt and slick jogging pants, navy with a white stripe down each side, along with a pair of Adidas tennis shoes, I looked as if I belonged.

Silently, I waited for her instructions.

"Here. Sit on this bench."  Used for bench pressing, it wasn't all that roomy for the two of us as she patted the bench where she wanted me.

And then she produced the pictures.

MULLIGAN 4

Practice was always strenuous.  Killers they ran.  And ran.

From the restraining line because there wasn't room for all 12 to run hard and stop before crashing into the stage and heading back again to the free throw line, then to center court, then to the opposing free throw line, to the opposing restraining line and back. And back.

The team ran before, during, and after practice.  No team they played all year was in better condition.  They pressed every team, every play.  They had gone to State, as it's simply called, but finished fourth the previous year losing to a suburban Chicago team and then the Chicago Public League Champions, St. Joseph in a tight third place game.

All starters returning for their junior or senior years, the  storied Rams from the deep south were ready for a return trip to Champaign-Urbana.

No complaints from any player.  Dedication had been drummed into them since their grade school days.

"Just enough to keep the defense honest."

"But you're a great shooter."

"There are better.  Besides my role is defense.  And feeding."

"But you're a great shooter."

"We've been over this before, Dad,"

"But you're not listening."

It wouldn't matter much in three weeks and two days anyhow. 

MULLIGAN 3

Terri wasn't perfect.  She only thought she was.

Brunette with tanned, tanned skin.  She had friends with identical hair color who lobstered after a few minutes in the sun.  No matter how much lotion, how frequently smeared on.

Younger than I, she not only approached me, she goaled me for her own.

"But we'd be good together.  Good for each other."

"And when I'm 42, you'll be 30, and it only gets worse."

"Why are you looking so far ahead?"  "Who knows what the next 10 years will bring?"

The brown eyes brought to mind an old song lyric "you  my little brown eyed girl/do you remember when you used to say..."  But then again, many things, many expressions, many glances bring music to mind for me.

And it was music that made me accept the inevitable with Terri.

MULLIGAN CONT.

That's just me.  Then and now. 

Now is 2008.  Just after the election that gave the US its first mulatto President.  It seemed to me to be the time for a Black,  Hispanic, even Asian to hold the top spot in our country.  Just not this guy.

But as someone once said, "You deserve the leaders you get," or something like that.  When I even think about politics, I think about Evelyn at KU.  You know, "Rock, Chalk," whatever the heck that means in Kansas.  I never did get it.

"HHH."

"I guess ever since Kennedy, Presidential candidates go by their initials now."

"He's got it together.  He won't escalate the war."

"You mean the one JFK started?"

"President Kennedy only sent advisory personnel to Nam." 

I liked her shoulder length hair, not quite strawberry blonde, not quite auburn either.  I'm sure crayolas had the exact color labeled.  At least I remember a burnt orange in a box of 48. But Shelledy's hair wasn't that color.  It was as unique as her name, unique as her involvement in the process, as she called it.

An English major, she had gotten more than her fair share of the ideology ( she once got into an argument with an instructor over the pronunciation of the word. Her preference was id-e-ol-ogy instead of i-de-ology) that permeates the college scene today.  It did then back in the '60's, but was not quite as overt.

What most of us back then let slide, she embraced and changed so much that she was almost unrecognizable to the crop of freshmen that she started college with just 3 semesters prior.

"Only a technicality."

I rarely got the last word with her.  But on this day, she had more in mind.  Of course, it included me.  Of course, I followed.

MULLIGAN

I thought of entitling it Minutiae.  But I better explain.

Having hit the proverbial wall in blogging, after a mere 3,000 or so entries, I decided to branch out or at least alter my approach.

Charles Dickens and Mark Twain did it, so I thought why not?  They wrote in installments.  That is, they wrote part of their stories or novels for newspapers that came out, in the case of Dickens at least, every two weeks.  Since I doubt that my three newspapers, The Arizona Republic, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Register-News would indulge me that format, I thought On The QT would. 

So stick with me or periodically to see where my characters are going.   Believe me, at this time I don't know, so we'll journey together through MULLIGAN.

Not every story has a beginning.  Count this one as that kind. 

A basketball star?  No, not really.  A gifted athlete, he was a hiker, a skier on snow or water, and with his outstanding balance, a rather good golfer.  But Ericson Chambers found himself the off-guard on his high school basketball team his senior year.

He had agreed to play only because school was too easy for him.  University awaited.  Colgate, he liked the name.  Maybe UConn, but when he first heard it he thought Alaska or Canada.  A small school, Stetson in Florida appealed to him because of its location, but he was as undecided about his future as he was about his present.

"I have a sister."

"Yeah. So. We're not talking about her."

"We're not talking about Lauren either."

"I've heard it all before.  Because you don't want some guy talking about how far he got with your sister in a dozen years or so.  That doesn't mean you can't tell me about Lauren right now.  Hell, all guys talk."

Swish.  Just beyond, well actually way beyond the demarcation for the three-point line that would come into the game in a few years.  Robbing, in a way, Eric of additional points that he could have put up.  "Not this guy."