Once again with feeling

I took this photo at John Abbott College on June 03, 2009. One of those times when you are walking along, look up and say “Wow that could be a good picture.”

Of all the major league games played Baseball stands out for me as the most accurate allegory for life. I haven’t played baseball in about three decades and other than keeping an eye on the Indians and the Cubs (my favourite major league teams since the demise of the Expos) I don’t really get involved in baseball anymore. My son has recently expressed an interest in playing and I am encouraging him because in baseball the search for perfection is constant and the impossibility of it is obvious – just as it should be in life.

Baseball is a sport in which even the very best players and very best teams will never have a perfect season. Typically a 90 – 70 season or 95 – 65 season is good enough to win your division but you will never see a 160 – 0 season in baseball. The message is simple you will lose – period. For hitters things are even worse. The best batting average in history was Ty Cobb’s at .366. That means that for every 100 times he went to the plate he got 36 hits – for most endeavors that would be considered a failure for baseball it makes him the greatest pure hitter of all time (apologies to the Splendid Splinter). Pitchers have an unfair advantage in baseball but even the greatest pitcher in the game (modern times) Roger Clemens still lost about 40% of the time.

Baseball teaches that there really is always another day and that just because you give it your best does not mean that you will be successful. It teaches that you cannot go it alone because no one person can carry a baseball team. It doesn’t matter how good the pitcher is the rest of the team has to back him up. Clemons best season saw him win 24 games an incredible 80% of the games he pitched but his pitching would have been for naught had it not been for the likes of batters like Rice and Boggs.

Baseball allows thought and planning. It allows for patience and persistence to pay off. Of all the games played at the major league level it has all the elements of great drama – one on one combat (pitcher v batter), sudden excitement (hits and stolen bases), strategy (line up and pitching changes) and unexpected outcomes. The best baseball is played at the professional level but some amazing baseball is also played at the amateur and minor league level. If you have the opportunity this summer you should go out and catch a game even if it is just a peewee game at a local park – it’s a great game.

1 - Jiffypop Popcorn - no friggin microwave popcorn even comes close
2 - Old Dutch rippled potato chips - there is no thicker chip
3 - Picard’s chipnuts. Munchies peanuts are good too but a poor cousin to the real thing.
4 - Crispers crackers - BBQ and Jalapeno
5 - Plain old peanut butter on raisin bread (Sunmaid raisin bread)

It is my personal belief that people are basically good. With few exceptions the majority of people I have met in my life have been good people. Those who were not good were really NOT good people and in my experience you can almost never tell who they are by looking at them. This of course could just be a prejudice brought to the table when dealing with people but even if it is a lie I tell to myself it is an honourable one.

Badminton season is about at the midway point for the boys and just starting for the girls. Over the last few weeks the girls have been practicing not just with myself but also with some of the boys who stay after school on a Friday afternoon to help out and a badminton friend, Amandip, who is a strong doubles player at the Y and readily volunteered to help me with the teams when I asked. No one who helps is compelled to and neither are they compensated yet Friday afternoons they show up to help a group of girls they owe nothing to hone their badminton skills.

With track season still some months off but the need for preseason prep an absolute necessity it was going to be impossible for me to get the athletes into the weight room and working. Asking around school it wasn’t too difficult to find two female staff members who readily volunteered to take duty in the weight room with the track team and then a male gym teacher who pitched in and reworked some of the exercises I had planned out with free weight for some of the younger students who aren’t used to working with free weight. Another teacher has come forward to coach throws and a parent who used to hurdle at the university level has come forward to coach hurdles.

I will admit to asking and on rare occasions cajoling but by and large people who help do so with grace and no expectation of anything. This has been my experience of people for most of my life – if you ask for help you will receive it. The trick, I have learned, is to remember to ask for help because if you don’t then you are unlikely to receive it. Maybe you didn’t hear it here first but it is one of my own “truisms”: Most people are good and will help you if they can. Just remember the “if” because not everyone can help and no one can help all the time.

It has been almost three weeks since I last ran. My right shin was giving me problems so finally I went to McGill Sports Medicine. The doctors there suspect a stress fracture (I believe they are wrong) and put me in a walking cast. On Saturday I will go for a bone scan and then with any luck the cast will be a thing of the past. It will still be necessary to track down what the problem is but at least I will be able to run again.

In truth there is probably no cure for it but I really panic when my wife takes ill. On Friday she had a seizure that was identical to the one she had in November of 2007 when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. What was I to think?

We spent about 12 hours in the hospital before she sent me home to get some sleep from about 6 to 9. Ultimately everything seemed to have come out fine. The CT scan was clear and her dilantin levels seemed to be the culprit. With the dilantin back to normal all seems to be good. Fingers crossed.

This morning watching CNN there was a short piece on longevity. The reporter asserted in the piece that one of the reasons the 95 year old priest was long lived was because he was religious and studies have shown that those who attend religious services regularly live 14 years longer than non religious people.

Starting point: Those who attend religious services live 14 years longer (on average) than their non religious counter parts. The statement is ludicrous just because someone does not attend services does not mean they are without spirituality. The science as it stands show that those who attend religious services live between 1.8 and 3.4 years longer than their non attending counter parts.

Second point: Going to a religious service is not going to extend your life. What we are talking about here is a lifestyle choice and there are a lot of variables involved not the least of which is the personality type that chooses to attend religious services. Personality and how you treat yourself has more to do with your health that going to a religious service. It would be more accurate to say that the type of person who attends religious services regularly has chosen a lifestyle which is more conducive to a longer life.

Third point: The reporter in the piece referred to chamomile as a powerful antioxidant which scrubs the blood and arteries. Poppycock! The idea of the health benefits of antioxidants bit the dust long ago but like many stupid ideas (left brain right brain comes to mind) it lives on because it is as facile as the population that mostly failed high school science to begin with.

Longevity is about three things: Genetics, physical activity and risk taking. You don’t run into as many 95 year old motorcyclists as you do 95 year old priests. You don’t meet a whole lot of old morbidly obese people - even if they do go to church regularly. As for genetics - just Google genetics and longevity and then go to science sites not sites with pop ups and sell throughs to health products. Twin studies are a good indicator of the influence of genetics on longevity.

Look who’s turned eleven. On April Fools day my daughter rolled over the eleven year mark. Just one more year until she hits high school. What a way to make a parent feel old.

It was a small birthdays celebration for a change - at least until today when the budget will be blown in favour of some photo opportunities. The irony of course is that while we worry about budgets the things we remember are the things on which we blew the budgets.

Tomorrow is race day a day to which I always look forward. Ten kilometers in temperatures slightly above freezing in March rain. With any luck it will be quick but you can never tell on race day and that is part of the lure of it. Unlike punters who lay off hard earned cash on some sport or another I bet my free time on my race time that my race time will improve the more free time I spend running. Every new season is a fresh start even if I am a year older and a couple of steps slower. In August I will have been running for 5 years.

I went for my first run on Monday August 9th, 2004. In thirty one minutes I managed to cover three and a half kilometers - an 8:52 pace for those who are interested. My first race was in February of 2005 when I ran my favourite distance, a 10K, in a respectable 48:07. Over the years my times have dropped a little but as I am starting to find out the advantages of training cannot outdistance the toll of time. Still it is important to hold out hope that the ravages of time on the clock can be held in abeyance with a little more effort in the workout and listening to the body when it says: Not today. Whether I run 48 minutes tomorrow or 44 is really ultimately irrelevant what matters is being out there and racing.

My mother has been ill. Currently suffering from an enlarged heart and lung infection she has been stubbornly trucking along as if nothing is wrong. When your medications include daily antibiotics and warfarin being stubborn is probably part of the territory.

Rickie Lee Jones once opined that “You never know when you’re making a memory” and she was right just as we almost never think we are living an historic moment while we are living it. My mother is eighty-seven years old which is kind of intimidating in a way. She was seventeen years old when WWII started. She was eighteen when Britain started rationing food. She was nineteen years old when she lived through The Blitz. When she was 22 D-Day was part of the news not the history books. We often forget when we deal with those older than us how much life they have lived.

The stuff of history though is not the momentous moments it is what is lived every day by those who build the roads, buildings and monuments and by those who write, paint and sculpt. We do not take the time to speak or listen to those who have gone before us and we are poorer for it. My mother’s own recent travails with health have reminded me that I need to listen more and talk less if I am to understand anything of her life.

Yesterday I lost my wallet.

The wallet contained:
1 - Driver’s license with my name, date of birth, photograph and address on it.
1 - Medicare card with my name, date of birth and photograph on it.
1 - Air miles card.
1 - Credit card - canceled
1 - Debit card
1 - List of phone numbers for doctors, school and day care
1 - Insurance paper for my car
1 - photo copy of my children’s medicare cards
1 - ten dollar bill
1 - reminder from my dentist that I have an 8:30 appointment on Thursday morning.

What I wonder about is why wouldn’t someone return this? It would seem obvious to me that the contents of the wallet are not really worth anything. The hassle factor alone to replace the contents would result in a reward for the return of the wallet. What on earth would you do with the above if you found it?

Ah well what can I do - time to dig out my passport and go to a government of Quebec office and prove that I am who I say I am so they will reissue my license and medicare card. Hope I don’t get a ticket or sick between now and then.

Last Friday the girls bantam track team won the GMAA title which was an impressive feat for a team of 5. I would like to say it is the coaching but in truth aside from a little encouragement here and there and some yelling while they are racing it is all the athlete. We don’t have any training facility at our high school and no access to one so the students show up at these events with the training that they do by themselves. My role is to be the adult responsible for them while they are there. Three of the five athletes qualified for provincials in a total of four events.

Badminton season is upon us at school too. Today is our first tournament against the powerhouse Royal West Academy. After that we have a tournament on Friday against PCHS which is a perennial threat to win a championship with a coach that played at the collegiate level. I work a lot with the badminton players and hope that it has been to their benefit but we won’t know if this punter gives good or bad advice until the results this week.

My son has decided to try and get into a program at school which is kind of a one room school house idea. All students in grade 10 and 11 work in the same room with three teachers who teach all the subjects. The students are required to obey a strict code of conduct but are allowed to leave school once their work and homework for the day is complete and they have completed any other class responsibilities in the rest of the school (gym or extracurricular). They also have the opportunity to graduate earlier than their peers. It seems like a lot to bite off but it is his choice and we are letting him make it.

My daughter continues to plug along not quite getting math but doing well in gym, art, music and English. We all have our fortes I suppose but it would be nice if she could get math a little more before she hits high school. Math really is one of those things that you have to get – even if you know how to do it, if you don’t get it, it’s just going through the motions.