Category: Transitions

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Shore character(s)

A painter and sculptor of wood and stone whose sylvan retreat includes a graveyard and whale bones salvaged from a nearby beach.

An African American “Elvis tribute” singer and musician embarked on the second wind of a fascinating, accidental career.

A mystical, “spirit trained” artist and former field hand who fashions popular creations in her doublewide mobile home from only newspaper, glue and paint.

It’s been my treat in the last week to spend time with each of them on Virginia’s quirky and time-warped Eastern Shore. It’s for a local magazine story that will get at the character and the unique artistic vibe found on that stretch of land most of us know as the prairie to be crossed to get from Virginia Beach to Salisbury and points north.

My interactions and interviews are obviously still stewing around in my head; the work of committing them all to compelling words and narrative is pending. But my two five-hour round trips to the nooks of the Shore, with a side visit to the Chincoteague oceanfront thrown in, were (the most recent) reinforcements of how lucky I still am for the opportunity to sit with strangers and, with their invitation (and for money), let my natural curiosities loose on them.

You are always alone when you write, but never more so than when you commit to writing on commission on someone else’s deadline. Isolation is often a friend, except at those frequent times when it is not. That’s the reality that helps me appreciate, as I began to do in my latter full-time days, the universal forces that allow me to do this thing I do.

There will be pressure, self-imposed as always, to give these stories the truth and energy they deserve. But it is a pulsing thing that lends vitality – and yes, a central relevance – to this phase of time that despite all still seems to answer to “transitional.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Giving it a good tri

I run like a madman now. And swim, even though my elbow is killing me. (Another surgery in store? :/) Oh, and I bike a lot. I have this great, new mack-daddy Cervelo road bike, did I mention?

This is all part of a nutty, consuming, late-50s – my late 50s – hobby I’ve taken up called triathlon. Believe me, I’m as stunned as anyone. More stunned than anyone. Endurance sports never, ever were of interest to me, although I guess you could argue pretty well that baseball and golf are endurance sports in their own way, given their innate sloth-like duration (and tedium).

Anyway, the point is, I acted on a slow-building urge to do a sprint triathlon, the shortest version of the swim-bike-run trifecta, last year when my daughter informed that she had entered a September tri in Santa Cruz, down Highway 1 from her home in San Francisco. Why, I exclaimed in a Eureka moment, let’s do Santa Cruz together!

Running had been an issue for me following three arthroscopic knee surgeries over the last decade. Pounding the pavement was too much discomfort and risk, so I flat stopped. But a funny thing happened over a year ago; I’d gone for a short run for the hell of it and . . . nothing hurt. I couldn’t believe it, actually. It felt good, and it formed the foundation, unspoken but percolating, of this triathlon idea.

I had started swimming to replace running way back when. So now if I could run without incident, and I had the swimming down decently enough, well, I’d biked since I was a little kid, right? Maybe I could actually do this.

Long story short, I have started and finished, with varying degrees of timed success, three sprint triathlons, plus a few 5K races in the last year. Now, the sights are set on the next natural step – an Olympic-length triathlon in and around Jamestown, Va. in four weeks. What’s an Olympic triathlon? In this case, a 1,500-meter open-water swim in the James River, a 40k bike ride (roughly 25 miles) and then a 10k, or 6.2-mile, run.

Why are the sights set so? I think it is for the feeling of gratitude I get after I have put one foot after another for an hour and experience no out-of-the-ordinary aches and pains. And, other than my something-is-clearly-wrong elbow situation, the satisfaction of being able to swim non-stop for an hour. As for biking, which I had never really done beyond neighborhood toddles, I have learned straight up that it is harder than it looks and that it is the area in which I need to improve the most in order to compete.

And I do mean to compete in my age group (55-59), although honestly competing to WIN the age group appears to be a pipe dream. Let me tell you, a lot of these old fellas are beasts! Their genetics, determination and iron constitutions can be intimidating to behold. I admit it seems beyond my capability and nature to rise to that level.

Still, I could surprise myself again. That I have come this far, to where I have visions in my mental attic of actually eyeballing the half-ironman (70.3 miles) challenge, is inspiring. And scary. And, of course, insane.

I don’t share this to be annoying or to fish for any sort of compliments. The name of a Facebook group I’m in says it best, the Pathetic Triathletes Group. Our kind can be self-important and obnoxious; go run and swim your little race there fella, who cares? But I share it more out of a sense of amazement at the course – pun intended – I have taken and an appreciation for the possibilities I have placed before myself after years of inertia. Gone is that reflexive notion that I just couldn’t, when in fact I and you and we always can.

Maybe we won’t always finish, but we damn well can start. Nothing pathetic about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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To Rosie, green grass and blue skies

I’ve been ruminating today in the wake of Dave Rosenfield’s death last night at 87. The legendary Tidewater/Norfolk Tides general manager was among the first

Norfolk sports figures, and longest-lasting by far, I met in my first week at the Norfolk newspaper in 1983.  

I liked his gruff, kindly, impatient, intelligent, know-it-all, generous, cheap, arrogant, bombastic, infuriating, scowling, needling, racist-joking, filthy-mouthing, kid-hating, never-ever-wrong, hilarious, snarky, deaf-as-a-post, totally genuine, contradictory self well enough — without really knowing him well at all, if that makes sense.

I think in 34 years I saw him once outside of a ballpark or a sports banquet, at a very long-ago lunch. I hadn’t spoken to him in more than two years, although I emailed him a couple of times over that period after he’d had some health scares. I never got a response, but I trust he received my well-wishes.

After leaving the regular sports ramble, I regret I didn’t drop by his office at Harbor Park to say hi, or make it a point to happen upon one of the weekly round-table lunches he enjoyed with other local sports figures. Wrapped up in my own woes and worries, I suppose.

I will miss Rosie – my preferred spelling of his nickname — like so many in Greater Norfolk, and today I riffle through vivid memories of our professional relationship.

It was early August and they gave the really green greenhorn a weekend assignment to cover some summer-league baseball championship at Met Park – known, of course, as Old Met Park since that dump was wrecking-balled in 1993.

I skulked to the far corner of that narrow press box low behind home plate, all of about 30 feet long, to set up shop for the game. It wasn’t a minute before I felt eyes from a hulking and, um, very portly man sizing me up. I gave a sideways glance as that form slowly approached.

“Hi,” he said, extending his meathook paw once employed as a college and minor-league catcher. “I’m Dave Rosenfield.”

Humma-da humma-da humma-da.

They’d told me to look for, and look OUT for, Dave before sending me onto his turf. It was totally like walking into a fiefdom. Dave was already a fixture, 20 years into his local minor-league baseball tenure. He owned a place and a career and a passion as much as anyone I have ever known.

I returned his hello, explained just a little bit about how I came to be in his presence that afternoon, and a relationship was struck. It was one that grew more familiar, and occasionally contentious, when I took over the Tides beat – then still a full-time, traveling, exhaustive grind — from George McClelland in 1988.

It was a fortuitous, for me, and rewarding association. Rosie loved to hear himself talk, and so he enjoyed holding court with coaches, major-league executives and reporters. For the latter, he was forever a go-to guy for honest commentary, unvarnished opinion and franker still, off-the-record truth as he saw it about sports, politics and scads of matters far-afield.

The remarkable, underlying constant was the knowledge that Rosie was one-degree-of-Kevin Bacon from pretty much any individual who ever played professional baseball. Ev-er. Think about that. It’s a hell of a thing. He knew everybody and everybody knew him. His kind is down to a precious few.

I know I pissed him off many times with my reporting and writing. I scooped the Mets’ announcement of September call-ups once and he and the Mets’ GM tore me a new one. He lectured me early in my coverage tenure about describing the Tides’ play as “miserable” in print after they’d played a particularly miserable game.

During a week of rainouts, I quoted the groundskeeper about what a stink dead earthworms beneath the field tarp created around the home-plate seats. Rosie was not pleased.

Another reporter and I bought plane tickets and invited ourselves along to Shea Stadium when he and the Tides president went to talk about the Mets’ demand for a new Tides stadium or else. Rosie harrumphed and vowed to give us no information, but he didn’t ban us from the Shea offices. We ended up sharing an airport cab both ways. And I’m certain he shared plenty of information.

I disappointed him badly at least once, too, although he never said so. I forget the occasion, maybe his 50th year in the business, and I wrote a profile of him that did not emerge as the puffery he expected, but a more warts-and-all recasting of his local omnipotence and contradictions. When I saw him, I could tell it had hurt him. But no one ever said the story wasn’t accurate and fair.

Throughout, and even thereafter, Dave remained a friend, a supporter and an unforgettably engaging character. He cracked himself up with story upon story, usually punctuated with his huge thunder-crack of a laugh. He ripped into employees up and down. It could not have been easy to work for one so demanding and temperamental, or even to be his close friend. I know people who were estranged from him for years before mending fences.

Yet he somehow fostered surprising loyalty. Rosie being Rosie, if you knew him even a little bit, was a great, never-dull and stunningly consistent show. During his full-time run as GM – before emeritus status the last few years – he missed a very small handful of games. I am fuzzy on this, but I think he missed just one – if any at all — in the late ‘80s when his first wife died. The ballpark was his solace and his sustenance, through every workaday chore. He even created and hand-wrote the entire International League schedule for decades.

What the hell? That’s crazy.

I enjoyed seeing him around the ballpark. I enjoyed his pontifications. I enjoyed Rosie being Rosie in its entirety, and I file it as a highlight of my journalistic life.

Regards, and sympathy, to his family, friends and the entire Tides front office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Rocky mountain life lessons

This is not Caleb.

Caleb peed his pants.

I don’t know Caleb, but evidently he is 4-years old. Someone, presumably his parents, dropped him off Saturday at the Breckenridge, Colorado resort ski school. Caleb was among the half-dozen children, all ages 4 to 6, assigned to my son, a snowboard instructor who is finishing his second month at Breck.

He is a newbie instructor, a year out of U.Va., so newbies get the wee ones by default. New high-school teachers get the convicts, new snowboard instructors get the pants-pee-ers. That’s how it works.

Caleb faltered early in the day. He had to have been nervous, probably scared to death. He is 4, for crying out loud. It was cold and he was surrounded by strangers and a blanket of white.

I don’t know how my kid handled the situation; all he reported via good-natured text was Caleb, well, you know. I suspect he comported himself well, that he calmed Caleb and paged one of Caleb’s responsible adults back to the school to gather their pup.

But it both amuses and heartens me that my kid has been thrown into the abyss to deal with cold, scared children with odd appendages lashed to their feet, and their parents, always an unknown quantity as well.

He is out there in the Rockies doing what he wants to do, living how he wants to live, supporting himself and his dreams. While he is at it, he is learning the best kind of lessons — how to think on his feet, how to talk to and persuade people young and old, how to be patient, kind, confident and certainly stern as necessary. And to take distinct gratitude when an envelope appears with a tip and a personal thank you note from a parent appreciative of my son’s attention and demeanor.

From what I know, “ski bums” need not apply for these positions. Slobs? Not when spot checks of his resort-owned, four-person apartment are frequent. Professionalism is a thing, every day, all day, on the mountain or in the office. This is wise to remember.

I have no idea how long he’ll stay at Breckenridge or that particular vicinity. The work is seasonal, of course, and at 23, the time from one winter to next tends to be especially unpredictable. But I know out West is where he wants to be, to follow his muse, embrace his youth and savor this life.

If the need to deftly deal with a childhood bladder accident or two is a prerequisite along his path to somewhere, that price is small indeed. His rewards are already rich, and getting richer.

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Sugar’s tale

Hey there.

I like that this story has been shared on Facebook about 1,300 times in the few days it’s been posted online. It’s a good one that I was pleased to do for Distinction magazine, a great product here in town. I don’t think we all can understand Sugar Rodgers’ young life and times. But I do think we can learn from them, young and old. I know I have.

http://distinctionhr.com/wnbas-sugar-rodgers-overcame-odds/

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Irreplaceable Arnie

As a sports writer, a golfer and an avid golf fan, I have been fortunate enough to cross paths and interview such hall of famers as Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Curtis Strange and Fred Couples.

Never, somehow, Arnold Palmer. arnold-palmer-07

I’m sad about that one.

I’ve seen snippets from Palmer’s funeral today, and the love and respect emanating from that ceremony was palpable. I’ve read retrospectives of Palmer as a golfer, a business-savvy professional athlete when no one else had the vision or guts to negotiate off the strength of their place and persona, a marketing genius, a father, grandfather, a philanthropist, course designer and a global citizen.

They eulogized Palmer as a pioneer, one of those naturally swashbuckling individuals who sucked the oxygen out of every room he entered, who schmoozed as easily with queens and princes as with gallery hounds of any age. Who men wanted to be and women wanted to be with.

I can imagine Palmer was one of those people who never met a stranger. Who greeted everyone, especially as his legend matured, with a wink or a kind word, fully aware that the moment being shared would be indelible for the one he was sharing it with. He could never have a down or an off moment, and I’ve never heard tell of that happening.

It chokes me up to see the video of his attempted last press conference at his last U.S. Open, at Oakmont near his Latrobe, Pa., home, in 1994. He couldn’t get through it. Same for his final Masters, 10 years later.

This is a nice tribute the Golf Channel crew, including author John Feinstein, put together today.

Arnold Palmer made professional golf a behemoth through his magnetism, integrity and trailblazing athletic courage. God bless him. God bless The King.

 

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Greatest Reflections

My thoughts on Muhammad Ali’s death lead me first to March 8, 1971.

It was a Monday night. I was 12, lying in bed with a transistor radio, crazy with anticipation.

Ali and Joe Frazier, the heavyweight champion, were fighting that night at Madison Square Garden. It is hard to overstate the hype that preceded that matchup of two undefeated heavyweights. The spectacle of boxing was still huge in the country, inexplicably huge to someone like my kids, and almost hard to believe for me now. Ali was of course a mega-personality unlike any sports had known, perhaps other than Babe Ruth in his time. But Ali’s skills were rusty from his suspension for refusing military service; this was only his third bout back. And Frazier was a stalking, vicious champion with a thunderous left hook.

Sports_Illustrated_41004_19710315-001-775

The fight wasn’t on television or radio. Closed-circuit TV was the medium of the era for big boxing events. It was a cash cow. Fans would buy a ticket into a stadium or another venue to watch the broadcast. So on my radio, tuned to an AM music station, the deejay broke in after every round to report the latest from the broadcast, probably Philly’s Spectrum. I have a thought that the voice was that of George Michael, who was huge in Philly and later moved on to larger fame in Washington, D.C. But even if it wasn’t, I know I hung on every urgent word.

The record shows that Ali surprised Frazier early, but Frazier bore into Ali through the middle rounds. I don’t remember the specifics of the scorecard except that Frazier was by far the aggressor. Early in the 15th and final round, that aggression paid off. Frazier bashed a left into Ali’s jaw and decked him, stunning news across the AM band. The replay I later saw of the knockdown did the word-picture justice — Ali’s right leg jackknifed, the red tassles splayed on his white boot, flat on his back.

Ali survived the round and the fight went to completion. That seems impossible for heavyweights of this magnitude. Also impossible is the event matched and exceeded its massive hype. Frazier won in a unanimous decision. Ali, of course, went on to defeat Frazier twice in two bouts, brutal affairs that contributed to the inexorable physical decline suffered by each before their deaths.

Other than being in the stadium when he lit the 1996 Olympic flame in Atlanta, I sort of met Ali once, long after his retirement and well into his struggle with Parkinson’s. He had to appear in a Norfolk court to give a deposition in a civil suit, as I recall. Word leaked that Ali would be there, and the editors quickly dispatched me and another reporter across the street to the building.

We found Ali and a small entourage waiting in the lobby outside the courtroom. Just like that, the most famous person in the world at one time, just sitting there. Ali said nothing, but probably on his word, the attorneys were good with us just hanging around, soaking in the scene.

As he often did in public, Ali quietly performed a couple of magic tricks – one with a disappearing handkerchief, another where he turned his back and suddenly appeared to be levitating. I got his autograph, certainly the only time in a long career that I broke that journalistic cardinal rule. Then, it was over, and we were on our way.

I’ve enjoyed the montages and reminiscences since his death last Friday, testimonials to his impossibly indescribable presence. This Friday’s memorial service in Louisville, scheduled to be laden with dignitaries from all walks, will be impossibly moving.

As with anything involving Ali, ever, the anticipation is thick.

 

 

 

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Commencing

 

 

Commencement is tomorrow.

The beginning.

The final college farewell for my children, yes, unless either of them surprise and wind up in grad school. But in the truest definition, my boy finally will commence to get on with whatever is next for him – which in the immediate aftermath is a trip to Iceland with his sister.

I can say the usual astonished parental things – wow, where did the time go? I can’t believe it – but no, really, I can believe it. The past seven years of University of Virginia experience have been wonderful, but that course has been run, and run well.

He knows, we know, that day is done.

Just as she was, he is ready and eager to head on down the road – likely westward toward the Rockies or perhaps the Pacific expanse. Doubtful that an extended detour through Thailand and Southeast Asia are in his cards, as they were hers, but something equally spontaneous out of him would hardly shock me.

I don’t lay claim to inspiring that spirit of adventure in them; I stayed in the same job 31 years, the same house 20-plus. They come by their world view and their thirst to go see, feel and taste honestly and through their own inspirations. If anything, they – and certainly the lovely and awesome Dee — have helped motivate my own commencement. Have helped me shake the inertia of routine and mindless comfort, the torpor of fear as well, and replace it with open-ended possibility.

Fresh eyes scan our horizons. Full hearts guide our next steps. We’ll gather tomorrow to recognize the miles covered, seal them in their special corner, and embrace boundlessness with its deserved gratitude and grace.

What a time it is to begin. Again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Distinct Victory

Well, hello again.

This story came out a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to post it here. It’s my second contribution to the great local magazine Distinction, for which I plan to continue to submit good stuff.

This one is extremely good stuff, in that it’s about the stunning struggle and enduring recovery of the wife of a local PGA Tour golfer. Audrey Leishman a year ago became suddenly and deathly ill while her husband Marc, one of the world’s top-ranked golfers, was practicing in Augusta, Georgia for the Masters. He rushed back to find Audrey, the mother of two young sons, with very little chance to survive.

Their story is gripping, and I thank them for sharing it with me and of course the Distinction audience.

Marc-Leishman-1

 

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The no-self-hate zone (No. 20 …)

I’m not sure where I came across what follows, but I’ve had it buried in my inbox for, well, going on a couple of years, it looks like …

Decluttering, I found it this morning and read through it again, for the first time, for all intents. I like it. You might, too.

Inspiration is always where we find it. Lessons and learning, as well. They’re all in here.

 

20 Things To Let Go Of Before The New Year
BY SHANNON KAISER
DECEMBER 16, 2013

How much stress are you carrying around? Do you feel burdened by life’s circumstances and emotional issues? Becoming more grounded and happy starts with letting go of worry and stress. I learned this in my own journey, through overcoming drug addictions, healing myself from depression, and walking away from a career in corporate to follow my heart and be a successful writer and life coach. In the process, I had to let go of a lot of things to become the person I am today.

Physically, spiritually and emotionally, I had to learn how to let go of the person I thought I should be in order to be the person I really wanted to be. Letting go of anything in life can be a little scary, but it can also be an amazing act of self-love.

Letting go of my worries and stress made a difference for me; of course I still dip in and out of some of my stress jar from time to time, but I’ve found this list a good reminder of what I need to strive for each day in order to reach unlimited happiness.

Here are 20 things to let go of in order to reach unlimited happiness.

1. Let go of all thoughts that don’t make you feel empowered and strong.

2. Let go of feeling guilty for doing what you truly want to do.

3. Let go of the fear of the unknown; take one small step and watch the path reveal itself.

4. Let go of regrets; at one point in your life, that “whatever” was exactly what you wanted.

5. Let go of worrying; worrying is like praying for what you don’t want.

6. Let go of blaming anyone for anything; be accountable for your own life. If you don’t like something, you have two choices, accept it or change it.

7. Let go of thinking you are damaged; you matter, and the world needs you just as you are.

8. Let go of thinking your dreams are not important; always follow your heart.

9. Let go of being the “go-to person” for everyone, all the time; stop blowing yourself off and take care of yourself first … because you matter.

10. Let go of thinking everyone else is happier, more successful or better off than you. You are right where you need to be. Your journey is unfolding perfectly for you.

11. Let go of thinking there’s a right and wrong way to do things or to see the world. Enjoy the contrast and celebrate the diversity and richness of life.

12. Let go of cheating on your future with your past. It’s time to move on and tell a new story.

13. Let go of thinking you are not where you should be. You are right where you need to be to get to where you want to go, so start asking yourself where you want to go.

14. Let go of anger toward ex lovers and family. We all deserve happiness and love; just because it is over doesn’t mean the love was wrong.

15. Let go of the need to do more and be more; for today, you’ve done the best you can, and that’s enough.

16. Let go of thinking you have to know how to make it happen; we learn the way on the way.

17. Let go of your money woes — make a plan to pay off debt and focus on your abundance.

18. Let go of trying to save or change people. Everyone has her own path, and the best thing you can do is work on yourself and stop focusing on others.

19. Let go of trying to fit in and be accepted by everyone. Your uniqueness is what makes you outstanding.

20. Let go of self-hate. You are not the shape of your body or the number on the scale. Who you are matters, and the world needs you as you are. Celebrate you!