My Sunday Feeling

 I got a text Thursday afternoon asking me if I had heard that C had died.  I had not.  Then again, I hadn’t heard anything about C in years other than he was in bad health.  I heard that from a man-one of the baseball dads at school- that used to work with him.  

I grew up with C.  He and my brother Dave were buddies. I seem to recall that we went to church together but I may be making things up.  That was a long time ago.  But we in school together from 5th grade through high school.

C could fairly be described as a recluse.  Which is kinda hard to do in this town. I called one of his high school friends to ask if he had heard anything.  Naturally he had not.  He said he last he saw C about 12 years ago.  After they had visited he asked C if he wanted to get some lunch sometime.  “No” was his reply.  I had better results.  I ran into C in the courthouse @ 8 years ago.  He said he needed to sit if we were going to visit.  Bad back.  “I never took care of myself,” he said I guess by way of explanation.  

Like his other friend I asked if he wanted to get lunch.  “Maybe,” he said.  I handed him my card.  Told him to call me.  Never happened.

I sent a message to his cousin.  Asked her if she had heard about C.  She was shocked.  Then again she hadn’t heard from him in years so she said.  I got a text from Baseball Dad. He said that it was his understanding that C had died in hospice care.  I heard back from C’s cousin.  She called C’s sister who confirmed her brother’s death.  

I think it’s pretty clear that C didn’t want many people to know even this final aspect of his business.  He was married at the time of his death and clearly she didn’t exactly broadcast his passing from a billboard on the highway.  In fact, I think I’ve only seen her once.  I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup if I had to. 

But I found it fascinating that people that would otherwise be somewhat in a position to know what was going on in his life did not have a clue.  Not a clue.  As I told one of my brothers, it was as if he didn’t really exist.  

As I have alluded to earlier it’s pretty hard to be a recluse in a town like Little Rock where everybody knows or is related to everybody else.  My wife has said that I am an introvert.  The first time she told me that was 5 minutes before I went onstage to basically do stand up for the old radio show “Tales From The South.”  I think I stared at her in disbelief as I ascended the stairs to do my shtick.  

Hell, I lived by myself until I met M.  So I guess I was an introvert to some degree.  But I was out in the world.  I ran my traps and regularly went up and down the contact list.  Truth be told, sha and I both like our downtime.  She watches movies in the den while reading feminist theology  I watch baseball while reading Sports Illustrated.  She confesses to being a homebody.  I’m getting there. We do a lot of takeout instead of dealing with the public.

But if our friends went more than a week without hearing from either of us, they would be concerned.  But the Deacon and I, though we have turned into “stay at home” types, are out there in the world.  We really exist.  And I like to think that folks would make themselves available if trouble was at the door.  

Which brings me back to C.  Obviously he didn’t want to have anything to do with many people, including his family and folks he grew up with.  His choice for whatever reason.  And he had every right to run his life the way he saw fit.  He was an honorable man and good and useful citizen.  

But when I die if I die, I hope I will have had the chance to visit one last time with people that I love or loved.  People that have been good to me and important to me in equal measure.

I hope C was happy in his solitary life. 

As for me, I’m sorry that another fleck of my childhood is gone. This seems to be happening with some frequency the older I get.

I wish he had called me for lunch.  

My Sunday Feeling

 Don't take this the wrong way.  And everybody takes everything the wrong way nowadays.  But TRY not to take this the wrong way.  

But I don't much get Taylor Swift.  And I concede that I just may be one of the few people in the US-or known universe even- that doesn't get her.  She is worth a billion dollars, is selling out concert venues all over western civilization, and has a movie out that I'm sure will do boffo box office.  Clearly this my problem.

I won't go see it.  Not that I have anything against her but I'm more at home with Talking Heads.  And I concede that most Swifties as they have come irritatingly to be known probably don't get Talking Heads or Tom Tom Club.  That's OK.  It's a free country.  

I wouldn't be able to pick out a single Taylor Swift song out of a lineup.  Except maybe that one she did on Saturday Night Live about what a jerk Jake Gyllenhaal is.  Like they say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Especially when she is armed with a Taylor Grand Acoustic.  My buddy the music critic, whose opinion is entitled to great weight, informs me that she is about the only female performer out there who writes her own stuff.  So there’s that.  Good for her.

I concede that she is a lovely girl.  Not Margot Robbie smoking but normal lovely like my stepdaughter and other young women you can easily find on any college campus or bar around here.And it is my understanding that she has a social conscious and is involved with "getting out the vote" and other lefto causes. Ain't it a hell of a note that being interested in issues like that are considered to be damn near Communistic by some people.

But despite all of her many virtues, both known and unknown to me, to adopt the language of the Grand Jury, I don't turn on the NFL to watch Taylor Swift.  

As everyone must know by now, Swift is friends, dating, involved with,WHATEVER, tight end Travis Kelce of the Chiefs.  And she has been seen in attendance at Chiefs games with Kelce's mom in his box.  

This is all well and good.  Except that every time Kelce, who is as good as they get, makes a play on the field, which is not infrequent, they cut to his box for the reaction of TAYLOR SWIFT!

This is not why I watch football.  I could give a rip about what is going on in the private box.  I could give a rip about the status of the relationship, whatever it may be, of Taylor and Travis.  

But you can bet your Capital One card that the NFL and the Chiefs do.  Because the presence of Taylor Swift at their games brings more eyeballs than would usually be watching.  And if those extra eyeballs are watching, odds are a good many of them are buying merch online.  Probably with the aforementioned Capital One card.

Which leads me straightaway to the following question.  Wonder what Dick Butkus would think about all of this?

Butkus, the old Chicago Bear, passed away last week.  He is considered one of the best linebackers to ever trod the middle of a football field.  He was a little before my time.  I only saw him, and the hapless Bears, play a couple of times on TV.  Perhaps if the Chicago team physicians were more competent and perhaps if Soldier Field hadn't been paved with Astroturf Butkus's knees could have allowed him to play at least through my high school days.  

Butkus played with an intensity bordering on savagery.  He didn't just tackle people.  He took them apart.  He led with his helmet.  He hit guys late.  He routinely got into fights on the field.

I remember watching the Bears on Monday Night Live one night with my dad. I was probably 15. Buck grew up in what WGN calls the Chicagoland area and was a Bears fan, poor man.  I remember two things about the game we watched together.  The Bears were coached at the time by a rotund former lineman named Abe Gibron who looked about what you would think a guy named Abe Gibron would look like.  Buck had a buddy named Gene back in Indiana who used to date Abe's sister.  Buck said that Abe's sister looked just like him. Gene said she was one hell of a gal and a lot of fun.  

The other thing I remember from the game was Butkus clotheslining a hapless wide receiver simply for having the temerity to run a crossing route in front of him.  Mind you, the guy was not in possession of a football at the time he almost got decapitated.  The old Detroit Lion defensive tackle Alex Karras was doing the color for ABC that night.  

He laughed.  

Clearly the game has changed and for a damn good reason.  It was a blood sport in the day of Alex Karras and Dick Butkus.  They would have to clean it up considerably to play in today's NFL.  Otherwise, they would get tossed in every game and get fined and suspended out the wazoo.  

But I would like to think that Butkus would find all of this Taylor Swift stuff to be complete foolishness (or other words to that effect that he would probably employ) and a distraction from the serious business of men maiming each other.  And if he were playing against the Chiefs today I'm sure old Dick would figure out some way, even in today's relatively sanitized NFL,  to kick Travis Kelse's ass.  Just to show Taylor Swift that she didn't mean jack to him.

I wish Travis and Kelse well.  To the extent that you can "know" anybody in the worlds of music or sports, they seem to be allright.   But I don't watch the NFL to get reaction shots of Taylor Swift.  

And if I'm Travis Kelse, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that Dick Butkus is no longer on the field.  Because I have a feeling that old # 51 would have a special way of letting Kelse know what he thought about all of this folderol.