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Fall is the best season; that goes without saying. It carries a feeling of crispness, a smell of growth, a color of change and progression.
This fall, my 39th, holds another bit of magic this year, a magic that I have experienced 8 times in my life.
The playoffs are underway and the Phillies are in them.
One year ago I wrote about the magic of watching my team return to post season for the first time in 14 years. Yesterday they took it a step further, by winning their first playoff game in 15 years.
I have tickets at my disposal for any of the post-season games that I can attend, but so far, work has interfered with the fun. But, my job being somewhat unusual, allows us all to watch the games at our desks, and I’ve tuned in one of the big screens across the room.
And that’s where the playoff magic really comes alive. I have long written and talked about the ability of sports to bring people, strangers together. Here in the newsroom, we aren’t strangers, but it is still something special to watch everyone huddle around a television to cheer and groan in unison.
On a normal evening, the newsroom clears out quickly between 6:30 and 6:45. Tonight, however, the Phillies were making some ground in the bottom of the second inning. One person after another pulled on their jacket, glanced at the situation, and decided to stick around a little bit. They made it more social too, pulling up chairs to desks to share TVs, rather than sitting alone.
First pitcher Brett Myers, not always a fan favorite, had a most impressive at bat, not just for a pitcher, but for anyone facing one of the league’s top pitchers. When he made it to base, there you could hear “Yes” cautiously declared across the room.
Then Shane Victorino came to the plate. He didn’t stay long as he hit his first career grand slam. The newsroom erupted, high fives for everyone, even the people who don’t normally care as much. And that’s ok, because the spirit of the playoffs can be shared with everyone.
In our case, we can’t be at the ballpark tonight, but we’re screaming and yelling and hooting and booing as if we were.
That’s the magic of it all.
I have lots of things to write about… but first, I have some catching up to do.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I was supposed to go on vacation, but got diverted instead to the Mother Of All Hurricanes.
Gustav didn’t quite live up to its expectations, but for me it was still a fun trip. I’ve been to 5 hurricanes now, and this was the first one in which I got to go through the eye-wall.
Covering a hurricane is a make-it-up-as-you-go experience. And I kept a journal. It’s rather long, so I’m going to break this up over a couple of posts.
Enjoy.
SATURDAY
Early afternoon – Station decides to go to New Orleans to cover the expected arrival of Hurricane Gustav, and asks me to go as the onsite producer.
3:00pm – Reporter and photographer are also selected, I make travel arrangements to fly from Philadelphia to New Orleans via Atlanta on American Airlines.
4:00pm – Start packing, shop for last minute supplies, cancel planned vacation to Canada.
8:00pm – Get call from travel division, flight changed to Continental Airlines, through Houston.
SUNDAY
7:00am – Wake Up and head to station.
9:00am – Shuttle takes photographer and me to airport where we meet reporter.
11:00am – Flight leaves for Houston.
Noonish – Flight attendants serve hot cheeseburgers and sodas, don’t charge for them like every other airline in the world, making Continental my favorite airline of all time.
1:15pm – Arrive in Houston, and decide we cannot get into New Orleans and get needed supplies. We tell Continental, my favorite airline of all time, and they somehow get our luggage off of the New Orleans flight and into our hands. They do it smiling and they refuse generous tips for pulling off the impossible. Continental is now, simply, the greatest American air carrier. (They don’t serve airline sushi though, so they aren’t quite number one worldwide)
2:15pm – Get on road from Houston to… well, we aren’t sure just yet. We head east with a destination to be determined. During the drive we find a Walmart, there are many of them in Texas, and buy loads of food, a cooler, cases of water, towels and toilet paper. Never forget toilet paper on trips like this. You just never know.
5:00 – On road in passenger seat, I make calls to our sister stations with satellite trucks in the region, figure out where those trucks are stationed, and based on those locations, and predictions made, not by meteorologists but photographers who have covered many hurricanes, we choose the town of Morgan City, Louisiana as our destination. It is about 4 hours away.
6:00 – Station calls, asks us to do a live shot for 11pm newscast. We expect to arrive in Morgan City at 10:30.
8:00 – After trying several locations, we finally find a store that has not run out of gasoline cans. We buy 4 5 gallon cans, fill them up, and strap them to the roof of our minivan using a very complex system of bungie cords. I remember that I never have really figured out how to strap them down and feel confident about them.
9:00 – Approaching Lafayette, La. we drive through the first band of storms associated with Gustav. The rain and wind are shockingly strong and a tornado watch is posted.
10:00 – Speak to photographer from sister station in Morgan City, ask him to find rooms for us.
10:15 – Rooms confirmed at Morgan City Holiday Inn.
10:30 – Find Morgan City Holiday Inn where satellite truck is stationed.
10:50 – Reporter prepares story. I check in to the Morgan City Holiday Inn. If you are ever in Morgan City, stay there, tell them John sent you. They are wonderful people.
11:00pm – Reporter does liveshot after having been on location for 30 minutes.
11:30 – Batten down the hatches and go to bed.
We are on the highway driving through a torrential rain storm, one of the trailing bits of Gustav.
I’ve been keeping a blog timeline on my laptop, but with no power or internet connection, there has been no way to post any of it.
Once that changes I’ll start giving the fun and exciting minute by minute look of what it’s like covering a hurricane.
But right now I need to tighten my seatbelt.
I have often wondered about the world’s complainers. How do they have the time to write, call, email their dissatisfaction with things?
Now I know. When something really pisses you off, you make the time.
Tonight, I am the complainer. And I am fired up.
For much of the summer I have been watching the CBS program “Greatest American Dog.” It’s your basic reality program, but each contestant is there with a dog. As a dog lover, I had found it adorable. The bond between dog and owner was wonderful to watch.
Each week the contestants run through two challenges, and at the end they are judged by three dog experts. At the end of each episode, a person and their dog gets sent home.
After this week I question whether Victoria Stilwell, Allan Reznik and Wendy Diamond really are experts and whether they actually care about the dogs or animals in general. As far as the program’s producers, well, there is no question about their love and caring for animals. They have none.
In the first contest this week, each dog had to sit down in a marked area, and stay still while… ok, I’m not kidding here… an ELEPHANT walked towards it in a menacing way. The dog that let the elephant get the closest was the winner.
You could see the terror on the faces of several of the dogs. All they wanted to do was run, but their owners, to win the challenge, had to yell “Stay, Stay” the entire time. The dogs were faced with the horrible choice of watching an ELEPHANT stomp towards them or disappointing their beloved owners.
And then there’s the issue of how you control an elephant to keep it from charging or stomping or doing any of the other things an elephant can do. There was an elephant trainer who had a big rod, that looked like it was made for poking or whacking.
That was the night’s first challenge.
Challenge number two was a giant jungle gym/obstacle course thing. The dogs had to run up a steep ramp, traverse a balance beam and then, using a body harness and at the urging of their owners, jump from a 10 foot ledge and slide down a zip line.
Again, you could see the terror in each dog’s eyes.
Question: How do you tell a dog it’s ok to jump off of a wall because the harness around its body will let it glide to safety.
Answer: YOU CAN’T!
And tonight, the owner who throughout the season has shown the greatest bond with his dog was sent home. Because his sweet dog was too scared to jump off of the wall.
His dog couldn’t be convinced to do something that a dog should never be trained to do.
The judges said he failed at the task. It is worth noting that these are the same judges who, just the week before, chastised him for pushing his dog too hard while trying to win a race through a maze.
This week he failed because he didn’t push his dog enough to get it to jump off a wall.
Shame on the judges and shame on CBS.
I have a few things running through my head tonight.
There is a great American post that I have been formulating, after watching and reading some of the non-sporting events to come out of China for the last two weeks.
There is also my story of cruising around town all weekend on my brand new scooter (it’s super cool).
But there is a late breaking post in my head this evening, prompted by John McCain’s latest television commercial. In it he is trying to stir the pot, rile up the Hillary supporters who are angry that she didn’t win. There was also a poll today that said 30% of Clinton’s supporters aren’t sure whether they will vote for Obama or McCain.
How can that be?
How can anyone who wanted Hillary to be president, who wants a change from the administration and policies of the current White House be so selfish and so “I’m taking my ball home and you can’t play with it” to let a similar administration and policies move in for another 4 years.
The primary process worked the way it was supposed to. Really, it did. She won in Florida, he DIDN’T RUN in Florida, because Florida was not in play. You can debate whether Florida should have been disqualified all you want, but it was, and everyone knew it was. Her victory there was hollow and not a true portrait of what the state’s democrats might have voted for, had everyone actually been on the ballot.
There are differences between Barack and Hillary, of course. But those difference are minor compared to Barack and John. To vote for John, or not vote for Barack means that Clinton’s supporters’ own hurt feelings are more important than the positions that the democrats stand for, that they are so focused on themselves and their disappointment that they would rather see the policies that they despise, that Clinton herself fought against, stay in Washington for another 4 years.
That is selfish.
Get over it, and join together.
By the way, this rant about the selfish and bitter is in no way an endorsement of Barack Obama or of John McCain. It is about thinking people who take themselves too seriously suck.
I am 37, which is not the same as 37 was when our parents were 37, and it’s completely different than 37 was when our grandparents were 37. In the 1500s I would have been dead for years by now.
It probably didn’t help my parents that when they were 37, they had a teenaged son. And my grandparents, by 37, not only had teenaged kids but they had also lived through and fought in World War II. I, on the other hand, am single and childless, although I did endure a marriage and a divorce which felt like they were turning my hair gray.
So is it my imagination or do I and my 30-something peers look younger than our folks did?
And along those same lines, my parents, in their early 60s look great. My grandparents in their early 60s looked old and elderly. That isn’t just my memory, I have pictures. You should see what my grandmothers looked like when they were in their 50s. Sure my mother is a little more liberal with the hair coloring, and grandma fashions weren’t so hot in the 1970s, but there is something else going on here too.
20 years ago, if a person in their 60s was involved in a news story, we might call that person elderly. My newsroom has officially written a policy that elderly is late 70s, and only after we see what the person looked like.
I saw an ad earlier this week for an upcoming concert in town. Have any of you seen Bernadette Peters recently? Holy crap! She is hot. And according to her own webpage she is 60. Now, friends of mine have long known that I am smitten with Diane Sawyer, so I suppose this isn’t the first time an older woman has made my mouth drop open. But, Bernadette, wow! She is so not even close to elderly.
But here’s my concern. If I met her (go with my dream here) does my younger-than-her-generation’s-37 mean that I would appear to her to be 25? Or, because she’s a 60-year-old who could pass for a 40-year-old, would she still think she’s close to my 25ish 37? Or… well, you see my point (pretend you do).
And it’s time for my prescription drugs, the 5 pills I have to take every day for my variety of ailments.
I love my eternal youth.
“Gosh John,” I know you’re asking, “where have you been all of this time?”
Well, I will spare you the details. I’ve been here and there, doing this and that, dating one woman or another. And I have been busy.
Actually, it’s been more than that, I suppose. Last you heard from me I was wallowing in my sorrow over a woman, and honestly, it was making me annoyed, reading my whining. I can only imagine what the rest of you actually thought. So I stopped writing for a bit, and it was easy to get out of the habit.
I started today by going back and reading myself, because I am my favorite writer, which is good because I am also my most loyal reader. It is great how those things worked out. It was an exercise in inspiration, to get my juices flowing. In the process, I did a little editing and some post removal.
As I said, some of the “woe is me” entries bugged me, so they’re gone from the blog. They still exist, I don’t believe in destruction of writing or of photos. The past happened and we learn from it not by tearing up parts of it. Still, I don’t need to have them right in my face either.
So as you go back, trust me, your favorite posts are still there. The ones that were as exciting as a lethal cocktail are not.
You will thank me.
Oh… and I found a random thing I wrote after a concert a couple of months ago. Consider it a bonus.
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