Aloha! Now my wife and I can say we have been to Hawaii. We spent Thanksgiving and several more days with friends on the Big Island.
We flew Hawaiian Airlines, and in the waiting lounge at the San Diego airport, every announcement from the desk ended with "Mahalo." Ending every routine message with this word gave it special meaning, an urgency, in my mind. I decided it meant, "Don't crash." I liked that and adopted it into other contexts. The waiter said, "Mahalo," it meant, "Don't choke." The checkout clerk said "Mahalo," it meant, "Don't drop your groceries."
I discovered the Hawaiian language is 95 percent vowels. It dates back to the first king of Hawaii, a Polynesian on one of the canoes which followed the birds from the eastern Pacific and ran into Hawaii. The Polynesian language was ALL vowels, and the king's name was AAA'A'AA'AAAA'AA'A'A, because the A vowel was more beautiful in its pronunciation than the E, I, O, or U, and he was the king. When they colonized Hawaii, the king decreed that the language would follow the rule of three A's for every other vowel. Eventually Captain Cook arrived and bargained for a few consonants, in the interest of making global trade easier. He was successful in establishing K, L, M and P. Centuries later, "Wheel of Fortune" was established on these Hawaiian agreements.
I had wanted to try poi, which is a paste made from the taro root. Wherever we went, no poi was available. The macademias, though, were dynamite. The Hawaiian music was also beautiful, a Nashville beat with slide guitar, high full-throated voices, and many vowels. They had a Costco in Kona. The checkout clerk said, "Mahalo," which meant, "Don't rupture yourself getting your purchases back to the car."
And so, now, I say to you, "Mahalo," which means "Don't hit the wrong button logging off and uninstall your entire Office suite." Don't laugh. It happened to me several weeks ago, before I knew "Mahalo."
December 13, 2013
May 30, 2013
The Great Gulliver
Gulliver could sit in my cupped hands when he came to Alta Mira in the summer of 1998. He was a black fuzzball with a huge white ruff and a white blaze on his face.
But he had the stout forelegs typical of male Shelties and his feet were big. Hence, "Gulliver."
He was not a nipper or a chewer. He gave the expression of waiting for something to happen. The black undercoat gave way to the sable color typical of Shelties and their larger Collie cousins. It may have been his size, or the size he was growing into, that gave an impression of awkwardness, resembling a teenage male human in a growth spurt.
But he matured into a boulevard dog. Gulliver by age four belonged at the end of a diamond leash on Park Avenue. A coat of pure, radiant silk. Huge white ruff thrown like an ermine stole over his shoulders and neck. The white blaze, the perfectly flopped ears, the carriage, the assertive strut which male Shelties display. He was a Gatsby dog. I guarantee, sooner or later, if he had lived in New York, his picture would have been in The New York Times.
Instead, Gully passed his years here with us at Alta Mira. Never in the spotlight, he still maintained an indifferent, celebrity, air. He didn't much let his intelligence show. He was a solid C student. He didn't need the grades; he was beautiful. When something happened, he was ready. Barkeley, his female running mate, was the provocateur. But when the chase began, she was halfway out to the patio while Gully was still turning around.
For the last few days, I have been watching Gully. He is the faded Gatsby now, head and ears still erect, the gait still suggestive but now slow and unsure, the ermine stole still there but looking worn, the gray muzzle dulling the electricity of the white blaze. His vision is suspect, his eyes watery. His hearing is either very poor, or he has decided to ignore us entirely. He is the herding dog, but now we are herding him. A couple of days ago, he managed to get three feet – not all at the same time – into his water bowl.
Next month, Gully would be 105 years old. Fifteen, in human years. "The Gully-Man," as Karen croons to him. Tomorrow the circle closes anew: when you decide to love, you agree to grieve. When Gulliver leaves at midday, tears will be copious, tomorrow afternoon, at Alta Mira.
But he had the stout forelegs typical of male Shelties and his feet were big. Hence, "Gulliver."
He was not a nipper or a chewer. He gave the expression of waiting for something to happen. The black undercoat gave way to the sable color typical of Shelties and their larger Collie cousins. It may have been his size, or the size he was growing into, that gave an impression of awkwardness, resembling a teenage male human in a growth spurt.
But he matured into a boulevard dog. Gulliver by age four belonged at the end of a diamond leash on Park Avenue. A coat of pure, radiant silk. Huge white ruff thrown like an ermine stole over his shoulders and neck. The white blaze, the perfectly flopped ears, the carriage, the assertive strut which male Shelties display. He was a Gatsby dog. I guarantee, sooner or later, if he had lived in New York, his picture would have been in The New York Times.
Instead, Gully passed his years here with us at Alta Mira. Never in the spotlight, he still maintained an indifferent, celebrity, air. He didn't much let his intelligence show. He was a solid C student. He didn't need the grades; he was beautiful. When something happened, he was ready. Barkeley, his female running mate, was the provocateur. But when the chase began, she was halfway out to the patio while Gully was still turning around.
For the last few days, I have been watching Gully. He is the faded Gatsby now, head and ears still erect, the gait still suggestive but now slow and unsure, the ermine stole still there but looking worn, the gray muzzle dulling the electricity of the white blaze. His vision is suspect, his eyes watery. His hearing is either very poor, or he has decided to ignore us entirely. He is the herding dog, but now we are herding him. A couple of days ago, he managed to get three feet – not all at the same time – into his water bowl.
Next month, Gully would be 105 years old. Fifteen, in human years. "The Gully-Man," as Karen croons to him. Tomorrow the circle closes anew: when you decide to love, you agree to grieve. When Gulliver leaves at midday, tears will be copious, tomorrow afternoon, at Alta Mira.
March 26, 2013
A hand for the Inverted Pyramid, please
I am so proud for my old friend and partner, the Inverted Pyramid. Thanks to him I and others in my profession have been able, for more than a hundred years, to construct news stories that let readers become their own editors. The whole story may be 100 paragraphs long, but with the Inverted Pyramid, readers can stop after the fifth or sixth paragraph, and know they have the most important information in the story.
The I.P. never got a dime for his work. He has been open-source technology from the beginning, in the 1850s. But today, he showed his worth. Yahoo bought an app called Summly for a reported $30 million.
Right away, Summly will be coming to your mobile device with short summaries of stories you may not have otherwise wanted to read on the small screen. If the summaries feel familiar to you, it's probably because it's the same self-editing you've been doing all these years with the I.P., who never got any credit for it.
He should now receive credit. I suggest a smidgen of the $30 million be used to fund a display at the Newseum, celebrating the I.P.'s power, since 1850, to summarize the lengthiest stories in five paragraphs.
That's all. The app's creator, announcing the Yahoo deal on his Website today, began: "In true Summly fashion, I will keep this short and sweet." That's the spirit.
The I.P. never got a dime for his work. He has been open-source technology from the beginning, in the 1850s. But today, he showed his worth. Yahoo bought an app called Summly for a reported $30 million.
Right away, Summly will be coming to your mobile device with short summaries of stories you may not have otherwise wanted to read on the small screen. If the summaries feel familiar to you, it's probably because it's the same self-editing you've been doing all these years with the I.P., who never got any credit for it.
He should now receive credit. I suggest a smidgen of the $30 million be used to fund a display at the Newseum, celebrating the I.P.'s power, since 1850, to summarize the lengthiest stories in five paragraphs.
That's all. The app's creator, announcing the Yahoo deal on his Website today, began: "In true Summly fashion, I will keep this short and sweet." That's the spirit.
March 11, 2013
Coming to your city soon: "The Big One"
We had an ominous earthquake here this morning, at 9:55 (I checked my watch by habit). A bookcase to my left creaked suddenly, and the floor rolled very gently beneath my chair for about five seconds.
The epicenter popped up almost immediately on the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Website, which is bookmarked by many Southern Californians. It showed the epicenter to be 12 miles east-southeast of Anza, a high-plateau hamlet 65 miles northeast of San Diego, where we live. There were numerous aftershocks.
Authorities said the activity was on the San Jacinto Fault, "one of the most active faults in California, and often called the western branch of perhaps the most well-known fault in the United States, the San Andreas."
In fact the San Andreas is only a few miles east of the epicenter. This is the kind of quake which would occur in the first five minutes of an end-of-the-world movie about what we in California call "The Big One."
Toward the middle of the movie – scripted to be three or four days from now – The Big One will hit, most likely an 8.5 or 9. When it does, a monstrous fissure will open up the spine of California, from the Mexican border through the Salton Sea and Palm Springs north into the San Joaquin Valley and central and northern California.
We in San Diego will get a hell of a shaking. Almost immediately thereafter, all of the United States east of the fissure will break off and slide into the Atlantic. You guys should go ahead and prepare.
The epicenter popped up almost immediately on the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Website, which is bookmarked by many Southern Californians. It showed the epicenter to be 12 miles east-southeast of Anza, a high-plateau hamlet 65 miles northeast of San Diego, where we live. There were numerous aftershocks.
Authorities said the activity was on the San Jacinto Fault, "one of the most active faults in California, and often called the western branch of perhaps the most well-known fault in the United States, the San Andreas."
In fact the San Andreas is only a few miles east of the epicenter. This is the kind of quake which would occur in the first five minutes of an end-of-the-world movie about what we in California call "The Big One."
Toward the middle of the movie – scripted to be three or four days from now – The Big One will hit, most likely an 8.5 or 9. When it does, a monstrous fissure will open up the spine of California, from the Mexican border through the Salton Sea and Palm Springs north into the San Joaquin Valley and central and northern California.
We in San Diego will get a hell of a shaking. Almost immediately thereafter, all of the United States east of the fissure will break off and slide into the Atlantic. You guys should go ahead and prepare.
March 10, 2013
The truth about journalism and change
I must have entered a zone where untruths about my profession pop up before me and demand correcting. Here's the first paragraph from a review in this week's New York Times Book Review:
"A novelist once told me that he had given up writing journalism on the side because 'in journalism they only let you tell one story: Something Has Changed.'"
That is not true. In writing journalism, they let you tell two stories:
1. Something Has Changed.
2. There is a Threat that Something Will Change.
Take politics. Late last Nov. 6, something changed. A presidential candidate was elected. Many "change" stories were written about the event. They would have filled a couple of scrapbooks.
At least as far back as January, 2011, stories were already appearing regularly that something would change. A president would be elected in November, 2012. Those threat stories would fill a couple of thousand scrapbooks and, by and large, were more closely read, for meaning and for hints at resolution.
Take sports. Sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry based on the question, who will win? For the Super Bowl, the premier event in American sports, journalists had two weeks to write the threat stories, and a day or two to write the change stories. Which do you suppose would fill up more scrapbooks?
Take weather. What will the weather be? Every newspaper has a weather page, every local broadcast station has two or more reporters, and national television has celebrity reporters and at least one 24-hour channel, covering something that hasn't happened yet.
Take the pope. Global television showed the installation of the plain metal chimney being installed on the Sistine Chapel roof, which millions of people will be watching daily for the white smoke signaling change, as they read hundreds of stories about who the new pope might be.
Take Congress. There is no threat of any change there in the foreseeable future. But don't we wish there was, and we could read about it?
"A novelist once told me that he had given up writing journalism on the side because 'in journalism they only let you tell one story: Something Has Changed.'"
That is not true. In writing journalism, they let you tell two stories:
1. Something Has Changed.
2. There is a Threat that Something Will Change.
Take politics. Late last Nov. 6, something changed. A presidential candidate was elected. Many "change" stories were written about the event. They would have filled a couple of scrapbooks.
At least as far back as January, 2011, stories were already appearing regularly that something would change. A president would be elected in November, 2012. Those threat stories would fill a couple of thousand scrapbooks and, by and large, were more closely read, for meaning and for hints at resolution.
Take sports. Sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry based on the question, who will win? For the Super Bowl, the premier event in American sports, journalists had two weeks to write the threat stories, and a day or two to write the change stories. Which do you suppose would fill up more scrapbooks?
Take weather. What will the weather be? Every newspaper has a weather page, every local broadcast station has two or more reporters, and national television has celebrity reporters and at least one 24-hour channel, covering something that hasn't happened yet.
Take the pope. Global television showed the installation of the plain metal chimney being installed on the Sistine Chapel roof, which millions of people will be watching daily for the white smoke signaling change, as they read hundreds of stories about who the new pope might be.
Take Congress. There is no threat of any change there in the foreseeable future. But don't we wish there was, and we could read about it?
Preserving something valuable in our culture
In this morning's New York Times, Maureen Dowd wrote a timely column about the news that Time Magazine has met its demise. Toward the end, she wrote this:
"It will be good if this moment provokes a reckoning about what really needs to be preserved in the culture, about what is valuable.
"Many content providers and managers — formerly known as reporters and editors — have stopped believing in their own value and necessity. But the gatekeepers in the content class have to understand the world in which we’re living and wield their judgment.
"Digital platforms are worthless without content. They’re shiny sacks with bells and whistles, but without content, they’re empty sacks.
"It is not about pixels versus print. It is not about how you’re reading. It is about what you’re reading."
Speaking for myself, Maureen is very wrong, and she is very right.
She is wrong when she says, "It is not about pixels versus print." It is very much about pixels versus print. The print business model was very simple. Hundreds of years ago, advertisers, seeing newspapers starting to spew out of the new print technology introduced by Gutenberg, quickly seized on the idea of riding the backs of newspapers through a family's front door and into their living room.
Publishers loved it too, because they quickly seized on the idea of charging advertisers for space in their newspapers. By the mid-20th century, hundreds of newspapers were being published in the United States, and getting through the front door into millions of homes. Publishers and advertisers could agree on affordable ad rates because the ads would be seen by so many people. There was a multiplier effect.
Newspaper publishers learned they could get very rich by establishing a 60-40 business model: 60 percent of every newspaper would contain ads, and the other 40 percent would be reader content. If you've ever wondered how publishers decided on the number of pages in any given edition, it was determined by ad sales. When the ad deadline was reached, publishers calculated the newsprint space the ads would require, then added 40 percent, and that total space determined the number of pages in that paper.
When pixels showed up, that very solid, mutually satisfactory and long-lived business model went blooey. Advertisers learned they could get into homes with very inexpensive but flashy digital productions, and a url. They didn't need newspapers any more. Newspapers became a bit player in advertisers' multi-media purchasing schemes.
There is an obvious fix, easy to initiate but difficult to propagate. In the old print business model, advertising revenue carried the load, and subscribers contributed a trickle. In the new pixel business model, they just need to be reversed: advertisers provide the trickle, and subscriber revenue carries the load. It will work because, again, there is a multiplier effect.
Speaking for myself, no blog should go over 500 words. So I'll stop here, and take this up again tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.
"It will be good if this moment provokes a reckoning about what really needs to be preserved in the culture, about what is valuable.
"Many content providers and managers — formerly known as reporters and editors — have stopped believing in their own value and necessity. But the gatekeepers in the content class have to understand the world in which we’re living and wield their judgment.
"Digital platforms are worthless without content. They’re shiny sacks with bells and whistles, but without content, they’re empty sacks.
"It is not about pixels versus print. It is not about how you’re reading. It is about what you’re reading."
Speaking for myself, Maureen is very wrong, and she is very right.
She is wrong when she says, "It is not about pixels versus print." It is very much about pixels versus print. The print business model was very simple. Hundreds of years ago, advertisers, seeing newspapers starting to spew out of the new print technology introduced by Gutenberg, quickly seized on the idea of riding the backs of newspapers through a family's front door and into their living room.
Publishers loved it too, because they quickly seized on the idea of charging advertisers for space in their newspapers. By the mid-20th century, hundreds of newspapers were being published in the United States, and getting through the front door into millions of homes. Publishers and advertisers could agree on affordable ad rates because the ads would be seen by so many people. There was a multiplier effect.
Newspaper publishers learned they could get very rich by establishing a 60-40 business model: 60 percent of every newspaper would contain ads, and the other 40 percent would be reader content. If you've ever wondered how publishers decided on the number of pages in any given edition, it was determined by ad sales. When the ad deadline was reached, publishers calculated the newsprint space the ads would require, then added 40 percent, and that total space determined the number of pages in that paper.
When pixels showed up, that very solid, mutually satisfactory and long-lived business model went blooey. Advertisers learned they could get into homes with very inexpensive but flashy digital productions, and a url. They didn't need newspapers any more. Newspapers became a bit player in advertisers' multi-media purchasing schemes.
There is an obvious fix, easy to initiate but difficult to propagate. In the old print business model, advertising revenue carried the load, and subscribers contributed a trickle. In the new pixel business model, they just need to be reversed: advertisers provide the trickle, and subscriber revenue carries the load. It will work because, again, there is a multiplier effect.
Speaking for myself, no blog should go over 500 words. So I'll stop here, and take this up again tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.
February 27, 2013
Becoming seventy
Seventy.
It approaches, indifferently. I approach it, differently. This one is different. Next Wednesday, March 6, I will become seventy years old. I need to say something about it, and that's a risky business. But it's my birthday, and I can try if I want to.
What a long, interesting, complicated aisle, coming forward from March 6, 1943. If I could return, and tell my grandmother, Susie, where I would wind up when I was seventy, she would say, "You're crazy as a loon, boy."
Approaching seventy feels like the aisle where it emerges from the seats and goes forward to an altar where the coronation will occur. That's where I am today. I'm not seventy yet. But from where I stand, I like the looks of it.
All the other landmark birthdays were grim labels, bitten off in two syllables. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty.
Now comes seventy. Three syllables, which come out like a sigh.
What a difference. Forty was a wake-up call. Fifty was to the AARP as Feb. 14 is to Hallmark. Then sixty. I remember sixty like it was yesterday. Sixty was a threat. A cool breath of mortality arrived on that day in light curlicues that tightened around my neck. Too late to plant a tree and expect to enjoy the shade.
The sixties now seem like a proving ground for seventy. Show that you can take this aging thing. Make it, and you will be rewarded with a nice ceremony, conferring the nobility of this age. Seventy.
I know already, approaching it, that next Wednesday I am not to look past seventy. Seventy is a day unto itself, to be breathed deeply in, celebrating not where I've been, or where I'm going, but where I am.
It approaches, indifferently. I approach it, differently. This one is different. Next Wednesday, March 6, I will become seventy years old. I need to say something about it, and that's a risky business. But it's my birthday, and I can try if I want to.
What a long, interesting, complicated aisle, coming forward from March 6, 1943. If I could return, and tell my grandmother, Susie, where I would wind up when I was seventy, she would say, "You're crazy as a loon, boy."
Approaching seventy feels like the aisle where it emerges from the seats and goes forward to an altar where the coronation will occur. That's where I am today. I'm not seventy yet. But from where I stand, I like the looks of it.
All the other landmark birthdays were grim labels, bitten off in two syllables. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty.
Now comes seventy. Three syllables, which come out like a sigh.
What a difference. Forty was a wake-up call. Fifty was to the AARP as Feb. 14 is to Hallmark. Then sixty. I remember sixty like it was yesterday. Sixty was a threat. A cool breath of mortality arrived on that day in light curlicues that tightened around my neck. Too late to plant a tree and expect to enjoy the shade.
The sixties now seem like a proving ground for seventy. Show that you can take this aging thing. Make it, and you will be rewarded with a nice ceremony, conferring the nobility of this age. Seventy.
I know already, approaching it, that next Wednesday I am not to look past seventy. Seventy is a day unto itself, to be breathed deeply in, celebrating not where I've been, or where I'm going, but where I am.
February 25, 2013
How they played the game
Back in the 1930s, a great sportswriter wrote of a boxer: "He was a third-rate middleweight second to none."
I can't find the quote, even with Google, and I don't remember the writer or the boxer. But the writer could have been talking about me as a football player. In every practice and in the locker room before every game, my routine was to acknowledge my shortcomings. I suppose it became psychological, but the shortcomings were real. I was slow. I was a third-rate athlete second to none. Glynn Gregory could cut on a dime; it took me a manhole cover, if it occurred to me to cut at all.
I am setting the scene for a legacy bequeathed me, and so many like me, by Glynn after his death, at 73, of cancer, on Feb. 14. At his funeral in Dallas, and events afterwards, teammates would have told stories about him, and how great he was on the field, and off.
It was a haze of lore that has enveloped me. I was an Abilene Eagle, in 1959-60, sat in the same classrooms as Glynn, practiced on the same field, suited out in the same locker rooms, played for the same coach, Chuck Moser, even got to wear Glynn's old jersey, No. 21, in a spring practice scrimmage in 1958. I blocked a punt that day. It was the highlight of my gridiron career.
Through this mist I can actually enter the Eagles' locker room in 1956, and feel what it was like, before a game, with Gregory sitting in front of a locker, and Jimmy Carpenter, Hayseed Stephens, Stuart Peake, Rufus and Boyd King, Jim Rose, John Young. Pull on a jersey knowing I had the speed and the skill and the will. Not just will. We all had will. We wouldn't have stood practice without it. But the will backed up by the speed and the skill, the athleticism, to go out and do something about it.
I can feel what it was like to be one of those Eagles, ready to just go out and play the way they could play. It reminds me of dreams I have had throughout life, where I could fly, not like Superman, but just above the houses and the treetops, above the neighborhood, liberated from gravity. What must it be like to leave the locker room and trot toward the field, liberated from gravity?
Last week a collection of photos from Glynn's life was circulated to an email list of men who played at Abilene High in the 1950s. For me, one image, from a baseball game, stood out. Abilene won three state football championships in Glynn's tenure, and two state baseball championships while he was playing catcher. In this image, an Amarillo batter, a lefty, has swung and hit a ground ball. Behind him, and even with him, is Glynn, the catcher, flinging off his mask in the same motion he breaks for first base to back up the play.
To kids like me, it is a fantasy photo. For Glynn, it was another happy day at the ballpark.
I can't find the quote, even with Google, and I don't remember the writer or the boxer. But the writer could have been talking about me as a football player. In every practice and in the locker room before every game, my routine was to acknowledge my shortcomings. I suppose it became psychological, but the shortcomings were real. I was slow. I was a third-rate athlete second to none. Glynn Gregory could cut on a dime; it took me a manhole cover, if it occurred to me to cut at all.
I am setting the scene for a legacy bequeathed me, and so many like me, by Glynn after his death, at 73, of cancer, on Feb. 14. At his funeral in Dallas, and events afterwards, teammates would have told stories about him, and how great he was on the field, and off.
It was a haze of lore that has enveloped me. I was an Abilene Eagle, in 1959-60, sat in the same classrooms as Glynn, practiced on the same field, suited out in the same locker rooms, played for the same coach, Chuck Moser, even got to wear Glynn's old jersey, No. 21, in a spring practice scrimmage in 1958. I blocked a punt that day. It was the highlight of my gridiron career.
Through this mist I can actually enter the Eagles' locker room in 1956, and feel what it was like, before a game, with Gregory sitting in front of a locker, and Jimmy Carpenter, Hayseed Stephens, Stuart Peake, Rufus and Boyd King, Jim Rose, John Young. Pull on a jersey knowing I had the speed and the skill and the will. Not just will. We all had will. We wouldn't have stood practice without it. But the will backed up by the speed and the skill, the athleticism, to go out and do something about it.
I can feel what it was like to be one of those Eagles, ready to just go out and play the way they could play. It reminds me of dreams I have had throughout life, where I could fly, not like Superman, but just above the houses and the treetops, above the neighborhood, liberated from gravity. What must it be like to leave the locker room and trot toward the field, liberated from gravity?
Last week a collection of photos from Glynn's life was circulated to an email list of men who played at Abilene High in the 1950s. For me, one image, from a baseball game, stood out. Abilene won three state football championships in Glynn's tenure, and two state baseball championships while he was playing catcher. In this image, an Amarillo batter, a lefty, has swung and hit a ground ball. Behind him, and even with him, is Glynn, the catcher, flinging off his mask in the same motion he breaks for first base to back up the play.
To kids like me, it is a fantasy photo. For Glynn, it was another happy day at the ballpark.
February 17, 2013
The Eagles and Secretariat
Following up on Glynn's blog, only last summer did I learn something new and significant about Abilene High's "Team of the Century." Last summer at my household we watched "Secretariat," the movie about the racehorse that won the Triple Crown in 1973, and winning the last and toughest race, the Belmont Stakes, by a totally preposterous 31 lengths.
Many of the reporters at the Belmont that day – Pete Axthelm, Heywood Hale Broun, George Plimpton, Furman Bisher, Jack Whitaker, Frank McGee – wrote and told of people crying as Secretariat roared down the stretch, actually accelerating, near the finish line, away from the rest of the field far up the track.
Broun told of Jack Nicklaus, the legendary golfer, telling him, at a tournament later that summer, "I was all alone in my living room, watching, and as he came down the stretch, pulling away, I applauded, and I cried." Broun said to him, "Jack, don't you understand? All of your life, in your game, you've been striving for perfection. At the end of the Belmont, you saw it."
When I heard that, I remembered I had seen perfection somewhere else, as a seventh-grader on Dec. 17, 1955, at Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth. That day, Abilene beat Tyler, 33-13, for the AAAA state championship. It was the 23rd game in the Eagles' winning streak, but this game stood apart. In building a 33-0 lead, the Eagles realized their potential. Chuck Moser always taught perfection, but realistically, knowing 75 or 80 percent of perfection would give his team a significant advantage. Against Tyler, though, perfection was achieved. Even Moser said it: "That game was something a coach lives for. Our first team played a perfect game all the way."
As always, when you remember those Eagles, two names rise first: Moser, and Glynn Gregory. That afternoon at Fort Worth, Gregory provided two memorable plays. Well, Moser would get mad at me for putting it that way. The Eagles provided two memorable plays in which Glynn was the ballcarrier.
The first was the second play of the game. The Eagles were in a hole at their own 10, then Gregory carried 48 yards to the Tyler 42. It turned out to be the biggest play of the game. Six plays later, the Eagles scored their first touchdown.
"On either side of the field," I wrote in "Warbirds" 50 years later, "people didn't quite know what to think. After a nerve-rattling start, the Eagles had moved 95 yards in eight plays, all of them rushes inside the tackles, and they did it in three minutes and seven seconds against the unbeaten Tyler Lions, who had allowed only one touchdown in the playoffs, and only 87 points all season."
The second memorable play came in the second quarter, fourth and 25 from the Tyler 40.
"It was the Statue of Liberty play. Gregory took off to the right, his cleats kicking up chalk dust at the 50 as he turned upfield . . . In front of Gregory was left tackle Rufus King. Gregory galloped across the 40, then the 30, with King five yards in front. At the 20, running at full speed, the 185-pound King hit (Charles) Milstead with a block that knocked the 6-2, 190-pound Milstead five yards backward and to the ground at the 15. Behind King's block, Gregory cut back across the field. Of the nine players near him, six wore gold jerseys. (Freddie) Green, racing across in front of Gregory, knocked down one defender who in turn rolled into a second Tyler back. Near the goal line, (Henry) Colwell set up to screen off the last defender, who wasn't going to catch Gregory anyway as he strode into the end zone."
I have been told that Rufus King, rest in peace, cried, when he read these words about that play 50 years later. I think it must be that humanity, as it began to develop on this Earth, started to use performance as an exercise in trying to understand potential. Eventually they learned that performance potential, when realized, reveals a spiritual element, and that element stirs the soul. When the soul is stirred, as most people now well know, it's common for some tears to spill over.
It's happened to me, watching Secretariat, and the films of the first half of the Tyler game, which are available in a DVD set created by the Abilene High video department.
Many of the reporters at the Belmont that day – Pete Axthelm, Heywood Hale Broun, George Plimpton, Furman Bisher, Jack Whitaker, Frank McGee – wrote and told of people crying as Secretariat roared down the stretch, actually accelerating, near the finish line, away from the rest of the field far up the track.
Broun told of Jack Nicklaus, the legendary golfer, telling him, at a tournament later that summer, "I was all alone in my living room, watching, and as he came down the stretch, pulling away, I applauded, and I cried." Broun said to him, "Jack, don't you understand? All of your life, in your game, you've been striving for perfection. At the end of the Belmont, you saw it."
When I heard that, I remembered I had seen perfection somewhere else, as a seventh-grader on Dec. 17, 1955, at Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth. That day, Abilene beat Tyler, 33-13, for the AAAA state championship. It was the 23rd game in the Eagles' winning streak, but this game stood apart. In building a 33-0 lead, the Eagles realized their potential. Chuck Moser always taught perfection, but realistically, knowing 75 or 80 percent of perfection would give his team a significant advantage. Against Tyler, though, perfection was achieved. Even Moser said it: "That game was something a coach lives for. Our first team played a perfect game all the way."
As always, when you remember those Eagles, two names rise first: Moser, and Glynn Gregory. That afternoon at Fort Worth, Gregory provided two memorable plays. Well, Moser would get mad at me for putting it that way. The Eagles provided two memorable plays in which Glynn was the ballcarrier.
The first was the second play of the game. The Eagles were in a hole at their own 10, then Gregory carried 48 yards to the Tyler 42. It turned out to be the biggest play of the game. Six plays later, the Eagles scored their first touchdown.
"On either side of the field," I wrote in "Warbirds" 50 years later, "people didn't quite know what to think. After a nerve-rattling start, the Eagles had moved 95 yards in eight plays, all of them rushes inside the tackles, and they did it in three minutes and seven seconds against the unbeaten Tyler Lions, who had allowed only one touchdown in the playoffs, and only 87 points all season."
The second memorable play came in the second quarter, fourth and 25 from the Tyler 40.
"It was the Statue of Liberty play. Gregory took off to the right, his cleats kicking up chalk dust at the 50 as he turned upfield . . . In front of Gregory was left tackle Rufus King. Gregory galloped across the 40, then the 30, with King five yards in front. At the 20, running at full speed, the 185-pound King hit (Charles) Milstead with a block that knocked the 6-2, 190-pound Milstead five yards backward and to the ground at the 15. Behind King's block, Gregory cut back across the field. Of the nine players near him, six wore gold jerseys. (Freddie) Green, racing across in front of Gregory, knocked down one defender who in turn rolled into a second Tyler back. Near the goal line, (Henry) Colwell set up to screen off the last defender, who wasn't going to catch Gregory anyway as he strode into the end zone."
I have been told that Rufus King, rest in peace, cried, when he read these words about that play 50 years later. I think it must be that humanity, as it began to develop on this Earth, started to use performance as an exercise in trying to understand potential. Eventually they learned that performance potential, when realized, reveals a spiritual element, and that element stirs the soul. When the soul is stirred, as most people now well know, it's common for some tears to spill over.
It's happened to me, watching Secretariat, and the films of the first half of the Tyler game, which are available in a DVD set created by the Abilene High video department.
February 15, 2013
Glynn Gregory
One morning in 2004, the phone rang.
"Mike, this is Glynn Gregory."
I about fell out of my chair. Men in their 60s aren't supposed to do that, but this was, well, Glynn Gregory. Calling me!
He wanted to order a copy of my book, "Warbirds," a history of the 1954-57 Abilene High School Eagles, who were voted the "Team of the Century" in Texas high school football.
When you remember those teams, two names rise first: Chuck Moser, the coach, and Glynn Gregory, a player. He is routinely named the best player/athlete on the Team of the Century, but I don't know. Stuart Peake and Sam Caudle played like hurricanes, but they were guards and didn't get much ink. Jimmy Carpenter, whose program weight was 153 pounds, scored both touchdowns in the 1956 state championship game and gained 227 yards rushing, and he still holds state tournament baseball records for hits (eight in 11 at-bats, a .727 average) and runs scored (nine).
The Team had many great players: Hawkins, Millerman, Ash, Thomas, Bourland, Welch, Colwell, King, Rose, on and on. Still, Gregory's name rises first. My own adulation for him has remained strong for more than 50 years. When I learned last night that he had died of cancer, yesterday, at age 73, it felt like a corner of the firmament had been knocked off.
I was beginning sixth grade in 1954, the September when Glynn, a sophomore, first pulled on an Eagle game jersey, No. 21. The Eagles were No. 1 in state preseason rankings, a big deal, I can tell you, to sixth graders interested in sports. Then they lost the third game of the season.
The following Friday, on Oct. 8, 1954, the Eagles beat Borger, 34-7. It was the beginning of a winning streak that stretched into December, 1957, meaning, from October of the sixth grade to December of the ninth grade, a stretch of 49 games, I never saw the Eagles lose. Glynn was on the field for 37 of those games, from Borger in 1954 to the 1956 state championship game at Austin.
By then, not just the kids, but adult Abilenians, were mesmerized by the glory. Even in the 1950s, cities the size of Abilene, without the natural identity of a Dallas or Houston or Austin, were trying to tag themselves. Abilene was "The Key City of West Texas." Anything to get on the map. The Abilene Eagles were terrific publicity.
Not until I was finishing "Warbirds" did I realize another kind of continuity might have been at work. This is from the last paragraph of the book:
"A feeling emerges, among the players but also among Abilenians of that generation. It is a feeling of being different from people their age who grew up in other cities. They saw for almost four years – almost the length of an entire high school education – what can happen when you live by the rules, know all the plays, and run till the whistle blows. Now they wonder if the message was so strong that they carried it with them, part of their education not available to others. They wonder if their lives have been different, because of a football team, the Abilene High School Eagles, 1954-57."
When I wonder about that message, as I am wondering now, two names rise first. One is Glynn Gregory.
"Mike, this is Glynn Gregory."
I about fell out of my chair. Men in their 60s aren't supposed to do that, but this was, well, Glynn Gregory. Calling me!
He wanted to order a copy of my book, "Warbirds," a history of the 1954-57 Abilene High School Eagles, who were voted the "Team of the Century" in Texas high school football.
When you remember those teams, two names rise first: Chuck Moser, the coach, and Glynn Gregory, a player. He is routinely named the best player/athlete on the Team of the Century, but I don't know. Stuart Peake and Sam Caudle played like hurricanes, but they were guards and didn't get much ink. Jimmy Carpenter, whose program weight was 153 pounds, scored both touchdowns in the 1956 state championship game and gained 227 yards rushing, and he still holds state tournament baseball records for hits (eight in 11 at-bats, a .727 average) and runs scored (nine).
The Team had many great players: Hawkins, Millerman, Ash, Thomas, Bourland, Welch, Colwell, King, Rose, on and on. Still, Gregory's name rises first. My own adulation for him has remained strong for more than 50 years. When I learned last night that he had died of cancer, yesterday, at age 73, it felt like a corner of the firmament had been knocked off.
I was beginning sixth grade in 1954, the September when Glynn, a sophomore, first pulled on an Eagle game jersey, No. 21. The Eagles were No. 1 in state preseason rankings, a big deal, I can tell you, to sixth graders interested in sports. Then they lost the third game of the season.
The following Friday, on Oct. 8, 1954, the Eagles beat Borger, 34-7. It was the beginning of a winning streak that stretched into December, 1957, meaning, from October of the sixth grade to December of the ninth grade, a stretch of 49 games, I never saw the Eagles lose. Glynn was on the field for 37 of those games, from Borger in 1954 to the 1956 state championship game at Austin.
By then, not just the kids, but adult Abilenians, were mesmerized by the glory. Even in the 1950s, cities the size of Abilene, without the natural identity of a Dallas or Houston or Austin, were trying to tag themselves. Abilene was "The Key City of West Texas." Anything to get on the map. The Abilene Eagles were terrific publicity.
Not until I was finishing "Warbirds" did I realize another kind of continuity might have been at work. This is from the last paragraph of the book:
"A feeling emerges, among the players but also among Abilenians of that generation. It is a feeling of being different from people their age who grew up in other cities. They saw for almost four years – almost the length of an entire high school education – what can happen when you live by the rules, know all the plays, and run till the whistle blows. Now they wonder if the message was so strong that they carried it with them, part of their education not available to others. They wonder if their lives have been different, because of a football team, the Abilene High School Eagles, 1954-57."
When I wonder about that message, as I am wondering now, two names rise first. One is Glynn Gregory.
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