Thursday, October 27, 2011

Let It Lie


"It's not a lie if you believe it." -- George to Jerry in a classic line from a Seinfeld TV episode
Never would I have believed this till I experienced for myself officiating on the sidelines at a youth football game.

Following a pass play down the sidelines, I suddenly encountered a sudden impact on my shoulder. It was a face. A coach's face. A coach's face where the face of a coach shouldn't have been during a live part of a football game. Ouch. That would be him as I was relatively unfazed by the contact. He, on the other hand, stood stooped over clutching his lower jaw looking as if he may begin to start spitting out teeth. I noted this as the play ended and was returning to my position on the line after the incomplete pass. And by rule as I passed him, threw a penalty flag at his feet. "That will cost you 15 yards for contacting an official," I verbalized to his.

"Whaath!" he exclaimed, as I proceeded to report the infraction to my referee for the enforcement.

And this is where it got interesting or disturbing, you can choose.

The referee decided to explain the penalty to the coach. What a sight as he tried to generate sympathy by remaining stooped over and clutching at the offended part of his face. And streaming out the denial that I did this intentionally and he was where he was supposed to be and it was my fault.

Referee then returns to center of field, yours truly returns to his post on the sidelines, now noticeably clear of coaches standing where they weren't supposed to be.

And then he did it. He couldn't keep his mouth shut, even as he still was holding it with his hand like it was a baby bird.

"I wath where I wath thuppothed thu be and you hith me," came from his lips.

I saw red.

I turned and said, "Excuse me."

"I wath where I wath thuppothed thu be and you hith me, ran righht intho me."

Somewhat shocked, and gazing not only at him but the 5th graders and assistant coaches looking at me as well awaiting my response, I lost my temper.

"You mean to tell me you are going to stand there and LIE to me in front of these kids and your coaches about where you were standing to make it seem that I am the bad guy. Despicable. You are supposed to be a mentor and a teacher and you are going to LIE to me. I know where you were standing. I hit you. If you were standing where you say you were standing I would have run into about 10 of your players or coaches and would have run down my chain crew as well before I ever even got to hitting you. I don't seem to remember hitting anyone but you. That's because they were where they were supposed to be and you weren't. Now are you going to keep trying to lie to me? Because if you are I am going to throw another flag on you as well as toss you out of here and you can watch the rest of this game from the parking lot. Well?"

He backed into the coaches box where he faithfully remained for the rest of the game.

And I hope by those that witnessed me standing against the lie, they may have learned a bit about personal responsibility and integrity.

A few plays later, the guy on the down-box indicator said that he thought I gave the guy a bit of a forearm shiv as I ran into him. Then he smiled and laughed.

Maybe I did and maybe I didn't. An official has to protect himself out there.

"By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man." -- Immanuel Kant

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Autumn Ramblings


A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long. -- E. E. Cummings
So the end of the fall season is streaking at me like arrow shot from a bow.

Sometimes this has me as the deer and sometimes the hunter.

Thwack!

That could be the sound of this time of year. It makes me strangely melancholy and reflective as I watch the leaves fall to the ground and turn from reds and oranges and yellows to the shades of brown and rot. The trees that once stood so vibrant now cast grim silhouettes against the more-ever grayish sky. The night sky even seems to be heavier above me, cold and darkest gray with it's stars that struggle to shine through the gloom.

I actually begin to feel the energy and vitality begin to seep from my body. My wife starts to show signs of hibernation as the days grow short and light is rationed by the sun in our part of the hemisphere.

It is no wonder that Halloween relates perfectly to the glum season that it dwells in. You can almost seem to hear all the different parts of the natural world start to form a scream. Damp, dark, frosty, decomposing. Surrounding almost everything but the brave mums of the gardens.

I think that there is more to fear about autumn that is beyond my understanding. And I wonder if I have not known autumn for too long.

I wish for Persephone to remain, to keep summer's dance alive. But alas, she returns each year through the cleft in the earth. Abandons us to face the approaching winter with windblown rains and tumbling skies. We are left armed only with jackets and shovels and hope. A hope that we will witness the rebirth of another spring.

Autumn wins you best by this, its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay. -- Robert Browning

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Voice In My Head May Just Be My Wife



“Why don't you write books people can read?” -– Nora Joyce to her husband James (1882-1941)

Nora Joyce's quote really popped out to me especially after I attempted to read her husband James Joyce's book, "Ulysses." This particular book shows up on lists of must read books all the time so I naturally assumed it was going to be good. Wrong! I found it unreadable at it's best. If I hadn't picked it up at a thrift store I would have returned it. Though it was big and heavy enough it may make a literary-statement of my good taste as a doorstop.

But the real wisdom of the quote is the fact that Joyce didn't know how to listen to his wife. Not only was she smart enough to recognize a rambling, disjointed, incoherent, trivial and confusing piece of writing, she spoke up and told her husband so. My guess is he ignored her as he went ahead and published it. All 265,000 plus words.

The people who rave about this book and it's stream-of-thought style must not experience that type of thinking or they would have a different opinion of this type of writing. I actually like to read to reign in that way of thinking.

Now I have had moments where stream-of-thought process takes place in my head and if I was to try and write it down it too would be mostly incoherent. I have a very scrambled brain as far as it staying on task when it is in a problem solving mode. And the older I get the more that stream leads to the thought "Just throw it out!" My wife actually called me a hoarder today when I asked where I got all the tubes of chap stick that are crowding my top dresser drawer.

Following is a launch into the stream of thought of my brain.

"I don't hoard chap stick, I just never seem to have a tube on me when I need it and then I stop and buy one tube and when it is no longer needed because my lips are no longer chapped I put it in the drawer with all the others that are in there along with the ones that I have never even opened and I have no idea where they came from or why I purchased them when I already have a supply in my top drawer..."

Thus begins my stream of thought which would eventually end many, many words later with something altogether unrelated to chap stick--like motorcycles or earthworms.

"Just put a tube in the car," I was told.

But they melt when it gets too warm.

I think I will start with throwing out the extra, open chap sticks.

And why do I have 3 mini-flashlights in this top drawer? I don't think I want to ask my wife that question. She'll just tell me what I don't want to hear.