Michigan Wolverines (or University of Michigan?)

Image found on the Internet

I have, at the age of 43 years old, not yet graduated any college. I have taken some community college classes. That being said, I have always considered the University of Michigan my unofficial alma mater.

My father graduated from U of M while I was a small lad, and as a result, spent much of my formative youth in Ann Arbor, on the college campus, at Wolverine Hockey games...and more importantly...spending every season of Wolverines football in the stadium, rain, sun, or snow, watching Bo Schembechler take the Wolverines to victory.

I vividly recall the drive every Saturday to the stadium, passing the same lightning-split tree, the same purple house; I remember the drum major, Jeff Wilkins marching down the field bent over backwards. Hearing "The Victors", hearing "Let's Go Blue" still instantly transports me back to my youth.

I remember the same kindly elderly alumni couple who would buy me popcorn at the game.

College football is something special, something different than the NFL for me, and although I am likely to never, ever, graduate from a college at this point in my life, I would like to think if I did, it would be at Michigan, and that I would be able to watch a Wolverines game again, this time as student or alumni, and maybe I would buy popcorn for some small boy. I can dream.

GO BLUE!

-Brent

"We want the Big Ten championship and we're gonna win it as a Team. They can throw out all those great backs, and great quarterbacks, and great defensive players, throughout the country and in this conference, but there's gonna be one Team that's gonna play solely as a Team. 

No man is more important than The Team. No coach is more important than The Team. The Team, The Team, The Team, and if we think that way, all of us, everything that you do, you take into consideration what effect does it have on my Team? Because you can go into professional football, you can go anywhere you want to play after you leave here. You will never play for a Team again. You'll play for a contract. You'll play for this. You'll play for that. You'll play for everything except the team, and think what a great thing it is to be a part of something that is, The Team. We're gonna win it. We're gonna win the championship again because we're gonna play as team, better than anybody else in this conference, we're gonna play together as a team. 

We're gonna believe in each other, we're not gonna criticize each other, we're not gonna talk about each other, we're gonna encourage each other. And when we play as a team, when the old season is over, you and I know, it's gonna be Michigan again, Michigan." - Bo Schembechler

Reunited (or Vera?)

Vera

My wife, Vera, has been overseas for the last 3 months and returns today. As she is a practical woman and not given to sentimentality, or dripping romance, I will simply say I have missed her, love her, and glad she is returning home.

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” - Mother Teresa 

SJ Sharks (or do you understand icing?)

Image found on the internet

I have previously spoken about football, and specifically the 49ers, but let me tell you about San Jose Sharks, the NHL Hockey team that I support, and support far more than the 49ers.

When Vera and first got together, I was heavily into Football, which she did not care for, whereas she was into Basketball, which I did not care for. Trying to find a sport we both could agree to took little effort because choices were limited: We both hated baseball (sorry baseball fans), but did not know much about hockey. Mostly on a whim, we went to see a Sharks game, and were blown away.

Hockey is so much better than any sport I have watched before. It is kinetic and frenetic. Constant attack and defend leaves you as a fan with pumping hearts and sweaty palms. It is exhilarating to watch, and if you blink, you might miss something. It took a few games but we even finally understood what ‘icing’ is as a penalty. We purchased Jerseys, t-shirts, sweaters, and other merchandise with the SJ Sharks logo on it. Something neither of us had done for other teams we support. We even got signed Jerseys by none-other-than Joe Thornton himself!

“I like ice hockey, but it's a frustrating game to watch. It's hard to keep your eyes on both the puck and the players and too much time passes between scoring in hockey. There are usually more fights than there are points.” - Andy Rooney

Look, I know the knock against hockey is that it is low scoring (soccer on ice) and it is mostly about fights (boxing on ice), but let me set you straight: It is low scoring, which makes every goal count, but low scores do not make for boring games. Every goal is hard-fought with constant action, where gaining leverage, exploiting every mistake, overwhelming force, and precision gain you the edge to win in hotly contested games. Every victory a triumph, and every loss a disaster. As to fighting? Yes, it happens, and actually plays a very small part of the game itself, but despite the physicality of it, is actually about psychologically intimidating the other team. Where players are literal battering rams against other players, a team with a known fighter on their side keeps an edge that may cause hesitation in the other in a game played at full speed.

Give hockey a chance, because chances are you will like it. If you can keep your eye on the puck.

-Brent

“We can make fun of hockey fans, but someone who enjoys Homer is indulging the same kind of vicarious bloodlust.” - Steven Pinker

Rubber Necking (or What The Hell Is Wrong With People?)

Image found on the Internet

I want to tell you a story that is bothering me, and I will admit some aspect may sound like I am praising myself, but that is not the intent.

About a week ago, from my bedroom window I heard the screeching of tires and the tell-tale sound of cars colliding, complete with a car horn playing its note in one long tune. This accident, I could tell, happened on a main drag, about two streets over from my domicile. This being Vallejo, and expecting little of my fellow citizens, I threw on my shoes and wandered over.

Sure enough, a car had collided with the back of another. The salient point of this tale is that a woman was still in her car, bleeding, obviously in shock, and trying to call someone on a cell phone, while her car still sat in the road on a blind turn. A crowd had beat me to the scene, but all they did was stand there and watch.

I leaped to action and got the woman out of her car, over to the sidewalk, and flagged down cars coming around the turn so as to avoid another collision, while at the same time convincing a few men to push the damaged car out of the road. Later, the paramedics who arrived would not let me go until I could show them the blood on my arm was not mine.

So yes, I did what I thought any decent person ought to do, but it really bothers me that everyone just stood around watching, and not helping, until I said otherwise.

Something has seriously gone wrong in our society. This isn't reality television, people...it's just reality.

-Brent

“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.” ― Helen Keller

Life Gone Awry (or Failure of Planning?)

Image found on the Internet

So, my gentle reader, you might well consider what had become of this introspective blog since last I wrote, way back in December of 2013.

Life happened.

And inadequate planning of my life allowed everything to get ugly. And messy. And confounding.

Simply put, I left the mountains of the Sierras and my home of the last three years, Truckee, California, and moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and that well bankrupt city of Vallejo. I did so in order to move in with my ill father and provide some measure of stability. The wife and kids initially stayed, but are now dispersed in various living arrangements.

Not to put too fine a point upon it, I regressed to bachelor living with my wife about. Got out of shape. Ate terrible. Did not exercise. Never got around to taking the wood working classes. Purchased goods for a life I don't have or ever will have. There is an upside, but that's a tale for later.

I don't want to dwell on this, so I won't prolong it. Just let me say that had I been a better man, had planned better, had some sense of myself as a man and not a man-child, it could have been different.

My situation has not changed, but I will attempt to do better. Until the next.

-Brent

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower