Winning & Losing

          Success and failure, winning and losing, such a fine line between each. Often, luck is involved in outcomes, often determination or lack thereof is the determiner. And sometimes we have only ourselves to blame if we lose or only ourselves to congratulate if we win. Sometimes we lose because winning would be too painful or too public and we don’t want to be at the front of the stage. Sometimes, on a subconscious level, we cause ourselves to lose. I think back to the Winter Olympics in 1994 with Dan Jansen, the speed skater who was favored to win by a bunch in the 500 and 1000 meters. But then, he’d also been a heavy favorite in 1988 and 1992 . . . and lost. In 1988 in both events he slipped and lost. In 1992 in Albertville the ice was too soft and he failed miserably. And in 1994 (that was the year the Winter Games got back on schedule with the Summer Games), he partially slipped in the last corner heading home, fell to the ice again, and lost again. He was devastated, his wife was devastated, his coach was devastated. I was reminded of Jim Ryun years and years ago in the mile and Olympic 1500 meters. He was the best miler in the world at the time; at eighteen he became the youngest ever to break the four-minute barrier (3:55.3). He ran in the 1964 Games but failed to get through the preliminaries and then won the silver, his only medal, in the 1968 Games held in Mexico City at elevations that Ryun wasn’t used to and he could do no better than second place. It was what happened to him in the 1972 Games that was so tragically sad. In his preliminary heat, in which he was incorrectly entered because of some official’s error over his time in the 1500, he had 500 meters to go when a runner in front of him slowed down and Ryun ran into him, after which a runner behind him stepped on his foot and all three fell off the track. He got up and limped in, with a look of agony for me and the world to see. And that ended his attempts to win gold in the 1500 meter Summer Games. It was one of the saddest moments in sports I ever witnessed. Was it fate that caused that fall? Was it fate that put him in a preliminary with inexperienced runners? Or was it some part of him that didn’t want to win the gold? I think some people cause themselves to lose in biggies like the Olympics. Maybe their fear of failing is so great that they, like people who are accident prone, make things happen that will allow them to lose for reasons that aren’t their fault, or at least for reasons over which they had no control. Jansen and Ryun may fall into that category.

          There must be all kinds of other unfortunate losers not just in sports but in life itself, with unrequited lovers probably the best example. According to Tennyson, ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Hmm, I’m not sure I agree with Lord T.

Countdown

Since I have so few newsworthy topics to write about, today’s blog will be devoted entirely to the latest details of my Countdown.

I seem to be sleeping longer than I did not so long ago, like for ten or eleven hours. And I seem to be looking forward to sleeping. Ten o’clock arrives and I can hardly wait to climb into bed. It’s almost as though I want each day to end and the next day to begin so that I can get to the end of that day. In other words, I seem to be marking time until something happens. Death? Maybe. A regaining of some health and stamina? Probably not. Each of our days is becoming too much the same lockstep routine—arise at 8:30 or 9:00 (more often 9:00 or later than 8:30), make coffee, bring in the Arizona Republic, take morning pills with orange juice, check the sports section, check the obituaries to see how many my age or younger have died, have a muffin or a piece of toast. Paper, done. Muffin, done. Coffee done. Then I hope that the PGA or LPGA is on or possibly an early afternoon Diamondbacks game. If no sports are available, I write a blog or catch up on letters or read one of the many e-books  on my IPad. Then, finally . . . blessedly, it’s cocktail hour, after which we have a simple dinner as we watch Lester Holt and the NBC Evening News to learn what new stupid things Trump has said or done. Then we watch whatever is on the tube or whatever we’ve saved until the magical 10:00 p.m. arrives and we can go to bed . . . to hurry to another day too terribly similar to the one just ended.

          Weight loss. As my appetite diminishes, my weight keeps dropping to levels I never thought possible. This morning, I tipped the scale at 159. Looking back to my youth, I think I probably weighed more than that when I was fourteen or fifteen. What will happen if this weight loss continues? Will I one day just disappear in a little puff of smoke? Or will I, like Benjamin Button, keep getting younger and younger and smaller and smaller until I disappear into my mother’s womb? Gadzooks! Such metaphysical questions.

          Although I have no way to give it a numerical value, less and less activity for me requires more and more rest time. Now, whenever I get up from my bed or chair to do anything . . . ANYTHING . . . after only a few minutes I have to collapse into a chair panting and wheezing like I’d just crossed the finish line in the Boston Marathon. Each day that passes sees me incrementally more exhausted than the day before. I now ride in an electric cart at the grocery store. I’m thinking about buying a wheel chair for conveyance on my rare times out of the house, but should it be a self-wheeling chair or an electric? If I had to turn the wheels myself, would I have enough energy to do it?

          And each day the Countdown gets closer and closer to midnight.

Kahlil Gibran & Infrastructure

            My wife went to see her cardiologist a few days ago. His name was Kahlil Salahudeen, and I wondered if his parents had been fans of the only other Kahlil I had ever heard of, Kahlil Gibran, author of a best-selling book called The Prophet. Did they name their son after the author? So I asked him and he said no, although he was familiar with The Prophet. Ah, well, so much for coincidences. But it did get me to look up what Gibran had said in his book. Here are a few of what I found:

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”

“The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.”

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

“To belittle you have to be little.”

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

            Every day I have a tougher and tougher time finding something to write about. What more can I say about Donald Trump? Or suicide? Or gun control or terrorist threats or opioids? In my mental voyaging, I stepped in one of our national potholes and stumbled onto the nation’s infrastructure. Everybody agrees that we need to do something about our infrastructure but how do we finance it? Conservative estimates say it would cost about $3.6 trillion. Whoa, that’s a lot of money. We’re already in debt up to our eyeballs so the government wouldn’t be able to spring for all $3.6 trillion. But the need for repair is essential. That thought led me to the many wealthy people in the U.S. Why couldn’t they pay for it? And if they did, would it be a voluntary gesture or a legal requirement? The truly wealthy have more money than they could ever need. Voluntary or required, what would it take? As of 2016, U.S. billionaires had $6.48 trillion; 156,000 millionaires had more than $25 million; 1,300,000 millionaires had between $5 and $25 million; and 9,400,000 millionaires had between $1 and $5 million. Sounds confusing, doesn’t it? If we got 10% from the billionaires, we’d have $684 billion; 5% from the millionaires would generate $3,037,000,000,000. Add in the billionaires’ share of $684 billion for a total of $3,685,000,000,000, or $3.685 trillion, which would cover the entire cost of an entirely new infrastructure. And how, you ask, did I come up with the $3.037 trillion from the millionaires? I took 5% of those who had more than $25 million, using $40 million as an average and got $312 billion; 5% of those who had between $5 and $25 million, using an average of $15 million and got $975 billion; 5% of those who had $1 to $5 million using an average of $2.5 million and got $1.75 trillion. See? Simple. Now all we have to do is convince these wealthy people that it would be good for them as well as our country.

U.S. Open

The gods of golf at Shinnecock Hills—that is, the USGA members who set up the course—are so jealous of their hallowed par score that they’ll do anything to ensure the sanctity of par 280, even if it means embarrassing some of the world’s best golfers. For example, look at some who failed to make the cut—Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm, and, although not ranked in the top ten, Tiger Woods, one of the crowd favorites. It also included other top players—Brandt Snedeker, Matt Kuchar, Adam Scott, Bubba Watson, and Sergio Garcia. Even the tv commentaries, Paul Azinger and Curtis Strange, seemed to be afraid to say anything that might anger the USGA gods. Johnny Miller, if he were there, would probably have called it like it is, a course that was set up to be too punitive for minor mistakes. I think it was a tournament that put too great a premium on putting and not on the other, more important elements of the game. Too often we saw a golfer miss a putt and go past the cup two or three feet . . . and then watch it trickle, trickle and then roll off the green and down the back slope. Late afternoon on Saturday, they then decided to syringe the greens (spray water on the greens between groups). Whenever you see them do such a thing, you know they fear they’ve lost the course. On eighteen, anyone who hit a second shot that went any distance above the cup, wound up with a putt that was like putting on linoleum. No matter how gently the putt was struck, if the cup didn’t get in the way, the next putt was ten to twenty feet. That’s just not fair and makes it too much like putting through the clown’s mouth at the local putt-putt course. Putting shouldn’t be that important. On Sunday, the course was set up much easier to avoid any embarrassing moments like the one of number thirteen on Saturday. Phil Mickelson had just hit his fourth putt from about three feet above the cup. When he realized it was probably going to roll down the slope and off the green, he rushed to the ball and hit it while it was still moving, a two-stroke  penalty that resulted in a sextuple bogey ten. Silly. The clown won.

          And speaking of clowns, again we hear from that pack of shrieking idiots who attend golf tournaments for the sole purpose of finding digital fame by screaming words and phrases which identify them when they play back their saved tv coverage—“Babalooie!” “Chicago!” “Saur Kraut!” “In the Hole!” “Come on, Dustin!” “Let’s go Big Guy!” and “Rollex!” I assume these guys are not golfers, have consumed gallons of beer,  and are obnoxious off the course as well as on. I’m surprised that no one has ever told them to put a sock in it. Maybe there isn’t a sock big enough to shut them up.

          On Sunday, we got to see Brooks Koepka hold off contenders to win his second Open in a row with a one-over par total of 281. The sanctity of par was once again maintained. But we also saw Tommy Fleetwood shoot a seven-under 63 to take home second place with the lowest score in U. S. Open history. It was an interesting tournament, but I’d still like to have seen the big names make it to the weekend.

Mary Poppins

        Last Tuesday we went to the Arizona Broadway Theatre to see Mary Poppins. I wasn’t sure if I’d like it, and after the first fifteen minutes I still wasn’t sure. Gut then—BANG!—it took off and became one of my all-time favorite musicals. I’ve always been more interested in the set design, staging, and choreography than, except for the really great musicals, the songs or story. Mary Poppins nearly popped my eyes out with set designs and special effects. The music and vocals not so much. The songs were long and in a sort of Cockney accent that made what they were singing almost impossible to understand. And some, especially Mary Poppins (Renee Kathleen Koher), were so shrill I wanted to clap hands over my ears. But the sets, special effects, and choreography were—well, if I were given only one word to describe them it would be— "scrumdidlyiciouslygloriosamarveloponousfantasmicalicious." (Hey, if Mary can make up a word, so can I.)

          First, the sets. The show opened with a full-stage scrim painted as a prosperous London street with attractive row homes. Then the back lights come up to show us a living room with four people, two adults and two children. Up with the scrim and the story begins. An argument ensues about the bad behavior of the children and the departure of the latest nanny. Later, after the children are sent to bed, the living room divides and moves off stage left and right to reveal the upstairs bedroom. Other sets included a kitchen, a park, the house rooftop with assorted chimneys, a curio shop, and a bank made up of nine moveable teller cages. Let’s see. With the opening scrim, there were a total of eight different sets.

          Second, the special effects. After Mary arrives at the Bank household, she takes her valise up to the bedroom and places it on a toy box and then proceeds to take out a five-foot hat rack, then moves the valise to a small hutch and removes a large green potted plant. Both items are far too large to fit into the small valise. How did they do that? I guess there was a false bottom in the valise and a false top to the toy box and hutch that gave access behind the set. Later, in a kitchen scene, the young steward shows us his clumsiness when he stumbles into a rack of hanging pots and pans, knocking them sideways, banging into a shelf of dishes that tip dangerously, then crashes into the kitchen table and breaks it in half. He weeps inconsolably when he sees what he’d done. But Mary, with a finger snap fixes everything, pots and pans back up on the rack, dishes untipped, and even the table somehow magically repaired. How did they do that? Other effects involve Mary and Bert flying overhead and a kite that soars above the stage. Okay, I know how they did that but it was still remarkable for a limited-budget theater to pull it all off.

          Third, the choreography. Two numbers were spectacular—the spelling out of “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” using hand and arm gestures as the company dances, and the chimney sweeps on the rooftop doing a frenetic tap sequence to “Step in Time.” Both numbers had the audience on its feet applauding. I can remember in the first few seasons at ABT when the choreography was pretty amateurish. Not any longer. These performers were nearly up to Broadway standards.

          If you’re a West Valley Arizonan, you should try to see this show. It would Mary Pop your eyes out, just as it did to me.

Suicide

Two more celebrity suicides, Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, leading to another national discussion of causes and prevention, another national fear that it might lead to a contagion of suicides. According to CBS news, suicides are up by nearly 30% over the last two decades. Why? And what can be done to bring that number down? I must confess that the national concern over suicides has always confused me. All right, I can understand but disagree with a religious view of suicide as immoral. But should all suicides be considered immoral? Aren’t there several valid reasons for wanting to end one’s life, like intolerable pain or terminal cancer or one of the incurable, progressive ailments such as ALS, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, MS, or Parkinson’s?

The age of those who attempt suicide should also be considered as well as the reasons for such an attempt. If the reason is mental illness or depression, suicide by those of any age is unacceptable. Mental illness and depression can be alleviated by therapy and drugs. The line between acceptable and unacceptable can depend on age, with acceptance rising with rising age. I’ve always thought that an unacceptable quality of life is a legitimate reason to consider suicide. The line between acceptable and unacceptable quality of life would vary considerably from one person to another. I’m eight-four years old and I often think about what is or isn’t acceptable. Am I planning to kill myself? No. Is it all right for me to think about death and suicide? Yes. Thinking doesn’t lead to acting.

Back to my original statement. I’m confused by the many different attitudes toward suicide. Certainly there is shock and despair over a suicide, just as there is for almost any sudden, unexpected death. But why should suicide be considered sinful or selfish?

Lately, I’ve thought about the methods for killing oneself. Many are bloody and gruesome and painfully shocking for those who discover the body, as for example, a gun to the head, as when Ernest Hemingway put a shotgun in his mouth. A leap from a tall building or bridge prompts frightening images, but a jump from a cruise ship, as Hart Crane did, is less traumatic, as is carbon monoxide in a closed car or head in a gas oven, as Sylvia Plath chose. A speeding car over a cliff or into a concrete abutment is violent and awful to consider. Strangulation by hanging or death by slit wrists is less violent but equally awful. Then there are the quiet methods: a heated car in an Arizona summer, a stroll into a raging South Dakota winter blizzard, a one-way swim out into the Pacific Ocean, a hunger strike, a lethal injection, or finally, the easiest and most accessible method—the drug overdose.

What exactly would prompt me to look for some way out of a life that I no longer consider acceptable? Ever poorer health (though not terminal), less and less to look forward to, a steadily narrowing of my physical world, the passing of more and more friends and relatives, and fewer and fewer activities that interest me. I’m not yet at the end of that string of reasons, but I get closer with every passing day.

1300 Posts

          Nearly there. To 1300 posts, that is. And I can’t seem to think of anything wort writing about. I guess I’ll just continue writing about how many posts I have under my belt, sort of a dumb topic for such a milestone. But, 1300 posts over a span of nearly ten years is sort of worth writing about. Let’s see, that averages out to about 135 a year, and if each post averages about 400 words, that would bring my total wordage to a hefty 520,000. That seems like a lotta words. But then I consider some of the most prolific writers, like Stephen King, Louis L’Amour, and John Patterson, and my total doesn’t seem like much anymore. They would each view writing as a full-time job, forty or more hours a week, which would be 2080 hours a year. If each wrote 250 words an hour (and that’s a conservative estimate), each would have written the same as what I wrote in almost ten years—520,000 . . . every year . . . for an average career of thirty years (and that’s a conservative estimate), which comes to 15,600,000. Whoa! That’s a lotta words. Mind-boggling.

          What else has been happening that’s worth examining? Trump. What has the Donald done lately that is also mind-boggling? First, he’s insulted the NFL with his comments about kneeling and patriotism, and if you insult the NFL you insult all the other sports. The result? The Philadelphia Eagles have decided not to go to the White House, nor would most of those other sportsmen and women who might win a championship. He just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that when he shoves someone, that someone will probably shove back. For his on-again off-again on-again meeting with Kim Jung Un next week, he says he doesn’t need to prepare for it, he’ll just wing it, sort of the same way he prepared for his debates with Hillary—just don’t prepare. He doesn’t believe his advisers who tell him such behavior could be dangerous for the U.S. He either doesn’t understand the need to prepare or he’s simply too lazy to prepare. I would suspect the latter. This is a man who thinks he can govern by Twitter. We’ll see how this meeting goes on June 12. Or maybe he or Kim Jung Un will cancel.

          NASA’s Curiosity rover has unearthed on Mars what might be 3-billion-year-old organic matter, suggesting that long long ago there may have been life on Mars, maybe even  intelligent life, maybe even life that moved to earth when Mars became uninhabitable. Makes for interesting thoughts to consider in that half-awake time at 3:00 a.m. And the time frame of three billion years sort of puts our tiny little lifespans into perspective.

           There--1300th post. I'm not sure if I'll try for another 1300 or just call it quits.But if I call it quits, then I'll have to give up my Countdown chronicle. And I'm not ready to do that.