Hello, I’m Veronica
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
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Rings of Summer
Over the next two weeks, the world will be witness to the greatest gathering of athletes and sports mankind has to offer. The XXXI Olympiad -that’s 31st for you non-Romans – will be hosted by the city of Rio de Janeiro. (Just saying “Rio” reminds me of “FedEx” – it’s simply not the whole enchilada). I must admit I didn’t realize “Olympiad” refers to the four-year period between Olympic Games – not the Games themselves. Count backwards by fours and you’ll realize the first modern Olympic games was held way back in 1896.
You may say, non-sports-fan that you are, there is nothing seventeen days of sports competitions can do to stir your soul. But I urge you, put away the electronics and have a look, even if only for an hour or two. A moment will be there and you don’t want to miss it.
The first Olympic Games I remember well was 1976 in Montreal. As a fourteen-year old, I was captivated watching Nadia Comaneci – also fourteen (!) – as she won three gold medals and scored seven perfect 10.0’s in women’s gymnastics. I love this trivia item: the gymnastics scoreboard could only hold three digits, so Comeneci’s perfect scores were expressed as “1.0”. For anyone who watched, it was one of the most electrifying performances in any sport and in any Olympics. It was a moment to remember.
The second Olympic Games I remember well was 1980, but only because the United States boycotted the events due to Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan at the time (which is ironic given America’s involvement in that country today).
That brings us to 1984: the XXIII Olympiad in Los Angeles. I was a senior in college, working a summer internship in Southern California. I was witness to a city transformed. The Games were hosted in a revitalized Coliseum (the same venue where the Olympics were held in 1932). Ronald Reagan was President and opened the Games in person. Sports venues were spread across the city, and the coincidence of several competitions on Fridays caused most businesses to shift to 4×10 workweeks. American flags were everywhere. The Olympic spirit was alive and well in the City of Angels.
I distinctly remember the torch relay at the L.A. Games, passing through the neighborhood where I grew up; John Williams’ glorious musical composition at the opening ceremonies (where dozens of white grand pianos were played simultaneously); Mary Lou Retton’s golds in women’s gymnastics; and Carl Lewis’s golds in track and field. I also remember the women’s 3,000 meter run, highly-anticipated because America’s Mary Decker was racing South African sensation Zola Budd. The two collided mid-race, Decker went down, and she never finished the race (Decker’s anguished face as she lay on the track is one of the Olympics’ classic photos). There were moments in L.A.
Here’s one more Olympic moment which may surpass any I’ve mentioned above. It was the women’s marathon. I don’t even remember the city or the year or the woman who won the gold. But I do remember the woman who won the bronze. As she entered the stadium for the final meters of the race, she looked over her shoulder and saw… no one. The bronze was hers. She raised her arms in triumph as she finished that final lap, crying in apparent disbelief. The unbridled joy and tears on her face as she crossed the finish line is a moment I’ll never forget.
The Olympics. Rio de Janeiro. Starting tomorrow. Watch. A moment will be there and you don’t want to miss it.
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The Aging of Independence
Ten years from now – this month – the U.S. will celebrate its 250th birthday. That’s remarkable to me considering I still have vivid memories of America’s bicentennial back in 1976. To put it another way, I’ve been witness to more than 20% of the entire history of the United States. We really are a young country, aren’t we?
Earlier this week my wife and I were driving back to Colorado from California, after a week of vacation at the beach. Passing through Utah we reached a small town called Cedar City. There’s nothing remarkable about Cedar City. It’s the home of Southern Utah University and almost 30,000 residents. But the name stirred a memory in the deep recesses of my brain. And then it hit me. Cedar City was part of a contest the Los Angeles Times newspaper sponsored when I was a teenager – a creative way of celebrating the nation’s big birthday.
The contest (if my vague memories serve me correctly) took place over fifty of the fifty-two weeks that year. Each week The Times published a trivia puzzle consisting of a jumbled American city name and a couple other facts you had to figure out about the locale or surrounding state. As the contest went on you realized The Times was picking one city from every state in the union. You cut out and completed each puzzle by hand, and at the end of the contest submitted the whole pile to The Times, to be included in a cash drawing. Our family’s World Book Encyclopedia – not the Internet that was still twenty years from reality – helped me with the research.
I didn’t win The Times contest but I know I learned a lot about our country in the process – including a few details about little Cedar City, Utah. Needless to say we are a remarkably diverse collection of states, towns and people; especially for a country so young.
America’s 150th birthday – the “sesquicentennial” – was honored back in 1926 when Calvin Coolidge was president. You can find Coolidge’s celebratory address to the people here. One passage in particular resonated with me: “Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken.” Powerful words then, but I wonder if today’s leaders would be so bold as to make the same statement? Look no further than the current presidential election: the Constitution and the Declaration are being called into question like never before.
Ten years from now the U.S. will celebrate its “sestercentennial” – fully 250 years of glorious independence. Philadelphia is already campaigning to be the host city for the national celebration. 2026 won’t be a presidential election year nor an Olympic year, but the fireworks and pageantry will surely be brighter. Let’s hope another decade brings not only renewed pride and optimism in America, but also a sense that we are – states, towns, citizens – “united” once more.
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Some Kind of Wonderful
I was skimming the headlines yesterday when I noticed Anne Hathaway paying tribute to director Garry Marshall for her acting breakthrough in The Princess Diaries movies. Then I realized the tribute was because Marshall had died recently, at 81 from pneumonia. Something about Marshall resonated with me but I couldn’t put my finger on it (okay, I may have watched the Diary movies with my daughter). When I checked his credits it made more sense. I’ve been drawn to Marshall’s work longer than I ever realized. This guy was prolific.
In the 1980’s, a burst of coming-of-age films hit the big screen. Today they’d still be considered cult-classics. I was particularly drawn to Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), Pretty In Pink (1986), and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). The characters were about my age and dealing with the kind of teenage angst I could really relate to. As it turns out, John Hughes wrote every single one of these movies. He also wrote one of my all-time favorites (still to this day): Some Kind of Wonderful (1987). If you’re a guy and you’ve seen the movie perhaps you made the same connection. Like Eric Stoltz’s character I was madly in love with Lea Thompson, until I realized I was really in love with Mary Stuart Masterson.
In my obsession with John Hughes (and director Howard Deutch), apparently I overlooked Garry Marshall. Marshall entered my life early with The Lucy Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Odd Couple in the mid-’70’s. My brothers and I watched what my dad wanted to watch in those days, so Marshall gets the credit for some fond father-son memories side-by-side on the family room couch.
By the early ’80’s Marshall had moved on to Mork & Mindy, Laverne & Shirley, and Happy Days. I’m sure I didn’t miss many episodes (and I can still hum the theme songs). Along with The Brady Bunch those were my go-to shows. Bit of trivia: Garry Marshall directed his sister Penny Marshall to fame in Laverne & Shirley.
Marshall solidified his influence on my life when he directed Pretty Woman in 1990. I was so taken by the movie in fact, that I mimicked a few scenes for my wife’s birthday a few years later. I woke her up with a handful of hundred-dollar bills, told her to go out and buy a nice dress for dinner; then showed up later in a limousine, standing through the sunroof in a tux with a bouquet of flowers. It was fun to play the part, but alas I am no Richard Gere.
Trivia again: Garry Marshall played a small role as a tour guide in Pretty Woman.
My wife and I took a chance on the movie Mother’s Day this past May – a light comedy with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis (and Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts). Was it a great movie? No. But as it turns out it was the last film directed by Garry Marshall. That little fact gave the movie more substance. With Mother’s Day, Marshall managed to give me more than fifty years of television and movie memories.
Rest in peace Garry. Thanks for so many kinds of wonderful.
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Dear Little John
Sports Illustrated occasionally puts out an issue titled “Where Are They Now?”, profiling the next chapters of athletes who were once prominent in their given sport. The latest edition – just this week – fittingly covers the gold-medal winning women’s gymnastics team from the 1996 Atlanta games. I can still picture Kerri Strug landing that perfect vault on a broken ankle; the clinching performance for USA team gold.
If my own friends from twenty years ago wondered “where is Dave now?”, they might stare in disbelief as I navigate my John Deere tractor across acres of ranch property here in Colorado. I like to think of my 42-in. 20HP v-twin hydrostatic front-engine ride as a mean, green, mowing machine. My model D125 chews up the fast-growing grass like a teenager in front of pizza. She’s a veritable beast on wheels.
My wife also has a tractor – a Kubota L4330 “Compact Utility”. Here’s a picture of our babies side-by-side:
Stop laughing now, and step aside with me for some color fun. If you see a yellow tractor it’s probably manufactured by Caterpillar. If it’s blue it’s probably a New Holland. Red equals International Harvester, (though IH stop making theirs in the mid-1980’s). Then you have Kubota in the bright orange and John Deere in a pleasing shade of green. As Skittles would say, Taste the Rainbow!
Okay, back to the photo. I confess my little green kitten is dwarfed by my wife’s Transformer mega-monster. And the stats don’t lie: her Kubota is twice the length and twice the horsepower, and outweighs my Deere by over a ton. She has a roll bar, which suggests she can go four-wheeling in the fields, or even cartwheel her tractor down sand dunes without the slightest of injuries. Me? I pretty much limit my adventure to little circuits around the back lawn.
While I’m at it, I’ll go to full-on confession mode and say my wife is the real tractor pro; not me. She and her Kubota keep the blizzard snow at bay in winter and the pasture grass at a respectable height in summer. My own occasional efforts with the Kubota are far more amateur, but I often make impressive gouges in our dirt driveway.
Last spring my wife rewarded herself with that cab enclosure you see in the photo, complete with side doors and heat. Maybe I’ll get her a stereo for Christmas. Maybe I’ll get my John Deere a seat cover.
Country music singer Jason Aldean had a nice hit with “Big Green Tractor”, but I wouldn’t be able to duet with Jason without thinking “Little”. Craig Morgan also had a hit with “International Harvester”, but I just can’t relate to the lyric “tip your hat to the man UP on the tractor”. Finally, Kenny Chesney made it big with “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”. Okay, now we’re talking (er, singing). Let’s assume my wife feels that way about my Deere, shall we? I’ll keep wearing the JD colors to show my pride.
Even if it’s just a “little” pride.
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Grim Reader
While visiting my parents last week, I was delighted to find a few dusty old children’s books on a quiet corner shelf in the family room. The books carry sentimental value because they once occupied a shelf in my grandparents’ house. They were the same books my father read when he was a child. And as we grandchildren were expected to be “seen and not heard”, these books were our refuge, stoking our budding imaginations with dozens of characters and places we longed to be a part of.
One book in particular – The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature – stands out as a literary beacon of my childhood. The stories within included Aesop’s Fables (i.e. The Hare and the Tortoise), the tales of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (The Emperor’s New Clothes), and the works of The Brothers Grimm (Rumpelstiltskin). The collection oozed with fantasy and adventure and innocence.
I reread a few of these stories last week and came to an unquestionable conclusion: The Brothers Grimm were a couple of messed-up dudes. On the one hand the Grimms authored Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Rapunzel, which Disney sanitized and gave a more positive spin. But more likely, you know the Grimms for their famous “fairy tales”, like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.
Fairy tales. Doesn’t the term conjure up images of enchanted forests and candy castles and magical sprites? That’s what I thought too, but Hansel and Gretel would vigorously disagree. These kids endured a nightmare on par with today’s R-rated horror flicks. Take ten minutes and read their story (you can find it here). The only detail I recalled was the house in the forest; the one made of cake and candy and spun-sugar glass. But this time around I couldn’t get past the other aspects. Within the first three paragraphs we read that H & G’s mother’s solution to a lack of food is to abandon her children in the forest. Even after they find their way back to the house the mother finds another (more successful) way to leave them behind. Later on, an old woman holds the kids captive in the candy house and prepares to “slaughter and boil” (and eat) Hansel. Gretel gets to watch. But the kids surprise the old woman by pushing her into the oven, and then she burns to death. A celebration ensues.
Little Red Riding Hood (which you can find here) is no less violent. A little girl in red may sound adorable but the story is really about the murderous wolf. Not only does the wolf consume LRR’s grandmother, he has LRR herself for dessert. And it doesn’t end there. A huntsman happens by, recognizes the wolf, decides not to shoot him because “maybe the grandmother is inside”; then cuts open the wolf and pulls out the grandmother and LLR alive and intact. Seriously?
The Treasury introduction says “eight, nine and ten is the fairy tale age”. The Treasury also says “many a child will haul the volume from the shelf and spend countless happy hours…” are you kidding me? This is gratuitous violence disguised as bedtime stories!
I used to cringe at the thought of my young children watching a PG-rated movie. Not anymore. There are over half a million copies of The Treasury out there in the world. I need to find them all and have a bonfire. Those Grimm images go to the grave with you!
About Me
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
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