Best Day Ever in the Underwear Department

~ Donald J. Lund

So one of the coolest moments in my existence was also the most awkward.

I met one of my childhood sports heroes.  And I met him in the underwear sales section of a department store.

Wait.

We’re going to need some context. And maybe a robe or something.

First, the who. The best pitcher in the history of baseball is Jim Palmer.  He had 268 career wins, a lifetime ERA 0f 2.86, first ballot Hall-of-Famer with 92.6 percent of the vote, 6-time American League All-Star, four Gold Gloves, eight 20-game winning seasons,  THREE time CY Young Award winner (finished second in the voting twice and third once as well), and THREE times a World Champion with the Baltimore Orioles.

The other who in this story is me, of course. Born in Maryland wearing an Orioles T-Shirt.  It is a medical miracle to jump out of the womb wearing clothes.  Superman had that famous red blanket he turned into his cape.  My superpower was fandom.  A gift of Orioles fandom handed down from my grandfather.  I use my powers, primarily for good, unless it involves the Yankees.  I get pretty nasty when the pinstripes of the evil empire are near.

Mr. Palmer made his Major League debut 10-days before my orange clad birth.  We’ve been pals from afar ever since.  Well, not much contact beyond that magical meeting, but I do get to see his broadcast work on television, via the the unique powers of satellite technology.

On a visit back to Maryland to visit family, I got to see him pitch at the venerable Memorial Stadium against the Bosox.  My Birds lost 1-0, the only run a sacrifice fly by the Yaz, aka Carl Yastrzemski.  Another weird day of no run support for the future Hall of Famer, but it was still glorious to see my pal pitching extremely well.

Our one and only meeting happened by chance.  Pure luck.  I was attending college classes in downtown Denver after some active duty time in the Marine Corps.  I don’t recall the exact day, but it was a whirlwind of activity.  I was standing in line for lunch on campus.  I happened to be wearing an Orioles replica jersey, nylon with no number on the back, and honestly, not one of my favorite bits of Bird clothing.

Suddenly a voice from behind me said, “So, you going to the signing?”

I looked at this stranger and replied, “What signing?”

“Jim Palmer. Downtown.”

“When?”

He glanced at his watch. About an hour.  You better hurry, it is only supposed to last two hours.”

“Wow, I had no idea, thanks man!”

I sure should have known about it.  There was little time to punish myself for ignorance, I had to hustle.  Yes, I own a Jim Palmer rookie card, but no, it wasn’t on me.  I probably should have done the Bob Costas thing and always had my favorite player card in my pocket all the time.  Again, not much time to prepare.

Next up was skipping lunch and ditching my next two scheduled classes.  That was an easy call.  The next thing was walking about a mile downtown to the department store.  The good thing about department stores in the 80’s is they had everything.  I went to the sports department and bought a baseball.

I then asked the cashier where the signing was.  It was not in the sports department.  He handed me a flyer.  It was a black and white photo of an athletic dude standing with just a smile and his underwear.  Oh that. The Jockey underwear campaign.  It was kind of a big deal for the time, the ad was in every magazine and on billboards everywhere.

Hey, the guy has got bills to pay, right?

I pushed beyond the inherent weirdness of walking around with a photo of a near naked man.  Truth be told I ditched the flyer, I didn’t need that signed.  I was on a greater mission.

I got upstairs, but could not get near the underwear department, the line went on as far as I could see into the men’s section of unmentionables.  And the line was well over 100 women who were happy and giggling.  There were a few of us male baseball fans, but it was clear we were out of our league.

Some of the women were dressed to the nines, they were going all out to meet my pal.  I noticed a couple baseball fans about ten women behind me.  A father and son going through a huge pile of baseball cards, deciding which ones to get signed. I politely asked the woman behind me if she could hold my place in line for a moment.  She agreed, and I asked the tandem if I could buy a few baseball cards from them.  All I had was three bucks, but they were cool, and gave me a few cards and essentially took the rest of my lunch money.

The line moved slowly, but eventually the world’s greatest pitcher came into view.  I could tell, even for a fairly famous dude, the attention he was getting was a little overwhelming.  How overwhelming? He was very happy to see me, even in the ugly nylon jersey.

And thank the heavens, to the disappoint of many of the women in line, they allowed him to be fully clothed for the promotion.

“An Orioles fan, then?” he checked.

“Born that way, Sir,” was my happy retort.

“It is really nice to see some actual baseball fans today.” He glanced left and right, and added, “Crazy, huh?”

“Very crazy,” I replied.  “I don’t care that it took this particular campaign for a chance to meet you. Thanks for all the hard work and all the great wins.”

He signed the brand new baseball, and the random baseball cards.

“You’re welcome, have a good day,'” said my hero, Jim Palmer, best baseball pitcher, ever.

Good day? No Sir, it was great.  It was one of the best days ever.  There were fate questions that needed to be answered.  Yes, I had a lot of non-Oriole clothing, but why was I wearing my jersey that day?  Who was the mysterious stranger informing me of the signing?  There are only about five O’s fans out here. How does an Orioles pitcher land in Colorado a mile from college?

Orioles Magic, maybe? Or underwear glory taken to new heights?

I’ll never have all of the answers, but I certainly realize it was the best day ever in the underwear department.

The Butterfly Kid

~ Donald J. Lund ~ 3 Comments

I loved coaching kids.  In all I think it was about 25 teams over a 20-year span, primarily football and basketball in both Colorado and Wyoming.

It wasn’t completely altruistic in giving back to the communities who took me in as one of their own.  The joy of building something from nothing, watching someone’s eyes light up when they learn and overcoming adversity as a team is about as fun as it gets.  I was thanked a bunch for volunteering my time for free, yet I’m still grateful for the vast majority of those moments.

Several of the kids I coached ended up in college athletics and one made it to the National Football League – but there is catch, I coached him in hoops, not on the gridiron.  He was a force of nature, no amount of coaching credit could have blocked his path.  That and no could ever block him one on one.

I think I can also blame my own little league experiences.  I was fortunate to grow up in an era before kids had to start specializing at five years old.  I didn’t have to pick one sport to play all year long.  I played football, basketball, baseball, ran track and cross country, intramural volleyball, softball, flag football, wrestling, golf lessons as a teen and a forced assignment to a swim team to learn how to swim.

I was always competitive, and a will to win without a lot of natural, speed, size or agility.  Slow and small are a bad combination for my very favorite sport of football.  Lucky me, I was in a very small town and with only 14-15 kids on the roster, I had the opportunity to play nearly every play at just about every position in two seasons.  And the league we were in was overwhelmingly unfair, as most of the teams we played had at least two times as many kids, it was often three times the size of our roster.

League play become a fascinating baptism of fire, getting run over by bigger, faster kids on a routine basis.  The cool part was, our little crew never surrendered.  We would find ways to score.  We had to get creative to make some plays.  I learned quite a bit about myself and life overall facing such odds and two losing seasons.

The happy memories from those lopsided losses made my initial decision to coach pretty easy.  Those memories and my five year run of youth football ended my sophomore year in high school.  I had moved to a much bigger football town. That size and speed thing caught up with me the day I looked over the depth chart, five name deep at each position and I wasn’t on the list.

Those who recall the youthful me, whining was something I was also very good at. I loudly lamented missing the gridiron, and one of my pals told me to go help his dad’s little league team as an assistant coach.  So I did.  And it was a blast.

So I did it again.  After a couple years of military active duty service kept me away from the fields, I returned as a head coach or as a co-head coach with that same pal, Steve, who gave me the gentle shove into coaching.  We developed a pretty good two-coach system where I mostly led the defense and he the offense, with each of us offering help to the other with plays and formations that didn’t work for us.

Our first couple years reminded me a lot of my own little league days.  We had small, but brave teams that got run over a lot.  Great kids, great times, just not enough experience or talent – sidelines included.

We also made some team policies that the kids really seemed to appreciate.  Every kid, regardless of skill had a starting position.  With a roster of 16-20 kids it was easy to set up, and every player had a stake in the fate of each game.  It wasn’t always easy to find a spot for everyone, we had some players who felt like they had better things to do.

Kind of like one of my all time favorites, The Butterfly Kid.  As all things placed on the Internet seem to be on here forever, I’ll leave out his real name, in case he doesn’t like the designation.

Practice started in August with summer in full swing, and as such, there can be distractions.  In the middle of an intense tackling drill, a voice chimed in over the sound of crunching shoulder pads and helmets.

“Hey, look coach, a butterfly!”

And he was right, there was an awesome looking butterfly right there, and the team stopped to observe for a brief moment.  Coach Steve diplomaticaly agreed with the observation and it certainly wasn’t an offense worthy of taking a lap.  We just knew at that moment we were going to have a problem finding our happy go lucky Butterfly Kid a starting position.

It was our best team so far too.  We had a great running back, a decent line, and we did a nice job of adapting the Ace back offense of the Washington Redskins of the time, a system they built around John Riggins, for those hardcore fans in the audience.

Ultimately, we found a spot for our Butterfly Kid on defense.  We placed him at the cornerback spot.  In a run first league, there were not a ton of passes for him to cover, but he loved the position.  He asked questions.  He asked us if he was in the right place at the right time.  He was learning faster than we realized.

Of course we had rivals in our league.  In particular, there was another coaching tandem who considered me and Steve far too young to be coaching football.  This was my third season.  I was 21-years old at the time, and of course, I still knew everything.  So did Steve at that same age.  Those old dudes can go screw themselves was our unified response to their criticism.

Then they absolutely schooled us and thrashed us in league play.  They noticed our weaknesses in the secondary and passed for a couple scores on the way to handing us our worst loss of the season.  Maybe the old dudes were on to something.

We got better.  We recovered.  The kids were resilient.  And we saw our rivals once again in the semi-finals of the playoffs.  Normally, we simply wanted our kids to play their best and whatever happened, happened.   This was really the first time we wanted to thump somebody.  We did our homework, we adjusted our game plan and it was an amazingly competitive game.

Late in the game, holding on to a precarious lead, our foes looked once more to the sky with their passing game and began driving down the field.  In a tense moment, in the key play of our season, a little kid of ours intercepted the ball, ran it back ten yards and sealed our victory and a berth in the championship game.

Crooked helmet and all, we could see his smile from thirty yards away.  The Butterfly Kid saved the day.  And it was the same smile that discovered that butterfly, but watching how happy he was to contribute to the win is worth it all and still makes my heart swell to this day.

Ultimately, if a coach is doing it right, it is for those moments when kids feel good about learning and doing something cool.  In a win or a loss.  A good block, or a good tackle, or the glorious game winning interception from a kid who wasn’t much interested in catching a football to begin the season.

We didn’t coach for the appreciation, although it was always nice to run into players years later to discover we made a positive impact on their lives.  Ego is always in play, so we did enjoy winning more than losing, but it was really for the kids who had the most to learn and wanted to play the game.

As it turns out, every player should have a starting spot, because every roster potentially has a big hearted Butterfly Kid waiting in the wings.

All-Time All-Pro Grandfather

~ Donald J. Lund ~ 1 Comment

Not me.

Technically, I’m mathematically eligible to hit the grandfather zone.  My brother is already and one of my good pals has the grandpa thing down cold.

But I am at a point in life when I’m flat out amazed of the influence on my existence based on one incredible grandfather, the artist formally known as Myers Steele Hastings.  More specifically Granpop.  I think it is an east coast distinction.  One set of grandparents are Mommom and Poppop and the others win the the Grandmom and Grandpop distinction.  I’m not sure I ever enunciated the ‘d’ so Gran’pop was his official pronounced title.

If Myers Steele sounds like two last names, you would be right.  He was named after the two doctors who delivered him into the world.  The Hastings family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland has been around since the 1700’s, and they even featured in James Michener’s book Chesapeake.  Yes, a book of historical fiction, but based on some real folks.  All farmers in the Hastings family, so no super famous outlaws or politicians on my Mom’s side of the family tree.

However, if you’re on the Eastern Shore and you see billboards advertising for Hastings Farms, that is a distant cousin or two making money.  Tell them I sent you, so they can look at you funny about a tractor rental.

Anyway, a lot of us in the world have fun grandfather stories.

Mine was from that generation of people who could do anything.  They grew their own food, sewed their own clothes, built their own houses, repaired their own cars, rode horses and other cool things I like to read about as a modern spoiled brat.

How cool was Gran’pop?

I hit him in the head with a baseball bat and he didn’t flinch cool.

Yeah.  I did that.

Don’t go just yet.  I didn’t mean to hit him in the head so hard the bruise started bleeding.  He kind of volunteered for it.  Not the bash on the noggin, but he signed up to be my baseball coach.  My Mom had yet to meet my future step-Dad, and we were living with my grandparents in Colorado at the time.

Which was another amazing thing, my grandmother up and moved to Colorado and Gran’pop followed along and started life over at the age of 50 in a new state way far away from eight generations of Maryland life.

Anyway, Gran’pop had raised his three kids and now he had a pile of four screaming boys — well, three screaming younger brothers of mine and me.  I didn’t scream so much.  But I wanted to on that fateful day of baseball practice.

If you know anything about me, I love baseball.  Thanks to Granpop, who was a long time umpire and fan of the game.  He took over as coach of my team when no other parent stepped up to do the job.  He coached us for two seasons, and he did a great job with the tiny team in competition against much bigger towns.

His worst player?  Me.

I could field several positions really well.  I ran the bases like the wind.  However, I couldn’t hit a curveball to save my life.  Once the other team knows that, they only throw you curveballs.  I had a decent eye at the plate, I led the team in walks and stolen bases.  But the hits just didn’t happen.

One day in practice, I was stepping out of the batter’s box with my back foot.  In my mind, I was setting up to hit to the opposite field, but Granpop determined that move was killing my chance to get the bat on the ball.  He told me, I tried to mentally adjust, but the bad habit kept happening.  He set up as the catcher and with his left hand, he held my foot in.

I swung as hard as Babe Ruth going for the fences.  I missed the ball, and cracked Granpop on the skull.  The sound was horrifying, and the little kid in me immediately reached toward the wound.  He simply pointed me back toward the pitching mound for more swings.  I got a couple practice hits.  And I apologized a few dozen times on the ride home.  He took the blame, but I felt really bad.  At least until that Saturday when I hit a double back up the middle.

The next batter on my team hit a single and I scored from second base.  The look of pride on a grandfather’s face as I ran by toward home plate, his expression complete with a band-aid on his healing head, is something that stays with a kid forever.

Raising grandkids on the side, working his way from nightshift supervisor to Postmaster inside of five years is one thing after a life of farming.  But taking the time to coach me in our favorite sport, that is special beyond my ability to express.

I miss holding the hammer or other tools he would need next when building something.  I miss talking baseball with him, although I still tell him the scores when our Orioles win.  I miss playing chess against him.  He never let me win, and made me a much better player.  I miss watching John Wayne movies with him.  Like all of the John Wayne movies.

Ultimately, I’m a better person for knowing him and that makes life better now.  Passing on the echo of the laughter he shared, the pure joy he routinely expressed and going above and beyond for people you care about makes for a pretty good example.

Thanks to my all-time, all-pro Grandfather, Mr. Myers Steele Hastings.

Stuck in the Middle With You

~ Donald J. Lund

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.

Ah, yes. Lyrics from the the classic old tune by Stealers Wheel.  I used to sing it out loud during especially frustrating moments at various jobs through life.  And then these same words washed over me the other night watching current political news the other night.  I’m sure I’ve lost some of you right after the last sentence.  Politics is already dominating the daily news fourteen months in advance of the next Presidential election.

And, I generally avoid the major elements of political discourse here.  But honest writers understand their perceptions of the world enter into any creation, including the freak show that modern American elections have become.  Fictional character interactions are sometimes less entertaining than the actual words emanating from today’s politicians.

However, today is an opportunity to change the focal points.  After all, today is September 11 and most of us will take at least a little time to reflect and remember the same day from 2001.  It may be more important than ever before to maintain the memory of those lost during that horrifying day.  And not merely to honor those who fell, but to recall how unified we all were after the literal dust settled at ground zero.

I had never been to New York City before, however, this summer I was able to travel there twice.  The first trip was a few days to try and absorb the scale and scope of the amazing city that never sleeps.  My wife mentioned the 9/11 Memorial and museum, but I shook off the suggestion like an unhappy pitcher atop the mound in a key baseball game.  I didn’t think I was ready to review the devastation of that day.  Fate would return us back a month later and this time I thought it important to try to go.

Improperly dressed for the rainy weather, we stood outside the museum getting cold and wet, waiting for our chance to get inside.  A complete stranger witnessed my miserably drenched visage and he pushed his umbrella in my direction to give me a brief respite from the downpour.  I must have appeared surprised, and he merely smiled and said, “It looked like you could use it more than me.”

A random act of kindness I very much appreciated just before we moved inside.  The remnants of the twin towers offered shelter from the storm, while preserving the powerful memories of the tragedy.  I held up fairly well moving from piece to piece, haunting photos, and reminders of what happened there.  At least until I stood before the hull of a destroyed NYFD fire truck.  “Ladder 3” was painted across what was left of the vehicle after the buildings fell.  At that point, it was if a piece of those buildings emotionally fell on me.  It hit me that none of the heroes from that fire truck survived the day.  And a former Marine cried among strangers, unable to take my eyes away from the truck.

It was sad and amazing all at the same time.

The important visit reminded how sad and amazing the entirety of our country was in the days that followed.  There was no extreme political left or political right, or blue or red states it was just us.  Us united as one, to rebuild, to restore and, yes to revenge as well.

Those random acts of kindness and the feeling of unity was the reaction to sadness of those attacks against us.  And I would hate to think another massive tragedy is what it would take to bring us back to the middle again, but it does feel like.

Most of us are the middle most days.  If we consider the vast majority of issues we agree on, such as education, jobs, safety, wellness, freedom, roads, travel, national parks — all things we tend to enjoy together.  Clean air should be one we agree on, but not always.  Laws we like, but it seems like some reform there could be helpful to reduce some of the swelling prison population.  It is a world record we shouldn’t have.  The extreme elements of society then appear to be focused on just a handful of issues – women’s health/right to choose, the death penalty, guns and the definition of religious freedom (i.e., freedom of religion or freedom from religion).

The great political wedge, focused intently on by left and right media is what makes it tough to turn on the radio or television.  Fear sells.  It sells tickets, books, commercials and fear flies off the charts among political machinations.  Fear of losing jobs, rights, retirement funding — it is all about what the opposite “side” will take away from you.  Fear is for sale in the U.S. of A. and business is frighteningly good.

For those of us who silently suffer in the middle, we know better.  We know the differences can go away in a moment.  We know we all share more in common than the handful of divisive issues that are constantly thrown in our face.  We know it is possible to both support the vast majority of amazing police officers and be against acts of police violence.  History tells us we’re a nation of immigrants and there are reasonable solutions to help people find a legal path to join us.

Common sense should replace fear in the media and the political stage.  That’s my crazy dream.  No grand speeches here, folks can either be kind or cruel. Understanding or indifferent.  I kind of like the dude with the umbrella that day in the rain myself.  I’m aiming to be more like him.  I’m happily stuck in the political middle with most of you.  I’d much rather us find united once again without an attack on our soil, but until that day then:

Clowns to the left,  jokers to right, here I am…

I’m not Batman, but I could be Eggman…

~ Donald J. Lund

The first comic books I flipped through were around the age of five.

Richie Rich, Archie, Sad Sack, Uncle Scrooge were among some of those first four color titles that added to the world of being a kid and showing off some early reading skills.  The stories were colorful, the art was fun and who wouldn’t want to dive into huge piles of gold coins in Uncle Scrooge’s money vault?

At that point I understood the nickname funny-books and why some folks referenced comic books that way.  When I was eight, my family was a world away in South Korea, and comic books were very much a slice of Americana.  No television set in that house, and so I read some superhero comics to my little brother.  Superman, Action Comics, the Amazing Spider-Man and an occasional Batman, Detective Comics or Marvel Team-Up among the reading choices during my six months there.  My little brother, who couldn’t quite read yet, demanded these adventures be read aloud.

It was no bother, I really enjoyed reading comics to my brother.  It added to the few children’s books we brought with us and whatever stories I could make up to entertain when the lights were out.  Which was quite often in Korea in the early 1970’s.

His favorite was Spider-Man and I understood why.  The stories were truly written for all ages then, so adults could enjoy the subtle complexity as much as younger readers. Some of the stories were actually quite dark.  As with Amazing Spider-Man #121 when Spider-Man’s girlfriend dies in the arms of the hero trying to save her.  Too much drama is what many modern parents would contend, but real life is always harsher than our fiction.

They were powerful stories.  And they really stayed with us, as there were consequences for decisions characters would make, unlike the dumbed down all ages material kids are exposed to these days.  But as writer Peter David might say, but I digress.

Batman comics of the 70’s returned the character to the darker, back alley tales of his Golden Age origins, pushing away from the campy POW, BANG, BOOM days of the wacky, but fun television version of the Dark Knight.  Some of those Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams classics continue to haunt the edges of my consciousness.  Good stories, great art and a healthy reminder, even the superheroes can’t fix everything.  We all have to make good choices to make life better.

An evil step-dad of the day threw all of those adventures away into the trash, just as we were set to return home to states.  The books were gone, yet, the imagination continued to thrive.  I wrote and drew my own comics for a time.  And then that one neighbor kid moved in behind my grandmother.  The kind of kid who likes a lot of stuff you like, the one you could talk sports, or bad teachers or even comic books all day long.  It was like winning the neighbor kid lottery.

Our families were fairly strict, so not a lot of goof off time, other than being allowed to hang by the fence and talk, once our homework and chores were done.  I knew he liked comics, I didn’t know he had a room full of them.  One day he handed me a comic sans the cover in between the chain links. Because the book lost the cover, he had no need of it.  It was a copy of Thor #258.

A life changer.

I’ll grant the story was not exactly Shakespeare, but no one need apologize for it.  In essence, the protagonist was on a mission to find his lost father.  Along the way, he is attacked by a base villain who threatens to kill his beloved if he does not comply.  We’re not talking about a regular comic or standard back alley brawl.  It is on a ship, in deep space, and the caption of the Viking boat is the Norse god of thunder.  Of course, Thor could make short work of the bad guy, in this case, the Grey Gargoyle, who turns his foes to stone — but no harm to his gal or his crew and he would surrender. That was a book displaying absolutely anything can happen in the space of 22-pages.

That was it.  A standard cliffhanger comic book ending, that would leave the audience begging for answers in a mere 30-days.  Of course, my next door comic guru did not have the follow-up issue or any of those life or death answers.  Luckily, my aunt and my mom took me birthday shopping a few days later and we discovered a specialty comic book shop in Boulder, Colorado.  Mile High Comics.

Crammed into that tiny retail space were thousands of comics, books, graphic novels, posters and well, let us just call it what it was, a slice of heaven on earth.

Oh, I found my answers, and a pile of Thor adventures, and the Avengers, the Justice League of America, Green Lantern and X-Men, oh my.  I was 12 at the time and life was instantly made better.

I returned to making comics, but my neighbor pal wanted in on the deal, so the partnership was called R&D Comics.  The letters simply representing Rob and Don.  But we made a cool logo and went to town telling stories and drawing them out on paper.  Our little brothers jumped on the creative bandwagon.  However, we are talking ‘little’ brothers here, so clearly their inventions could  not be as ‘cool’.

I returned my first ever character I made, Eggman, and I brought him back to life for R&D Comics. My invention was inspired by a number of existing heroes.  An alien, in a giant egg shell – which acted a lot like a turtle shell for protection, who had to travel to earth with no place to go.  Top that with a utility belt of specialized eggs, like force field eggs, explosive eggs, net trap eggs, etc., and you have hero who could hold off both Batman and Superman at the same time.

Yes, I understand other people have created their own versions of Eggman over the years, but mine was first drawn in 1972, my brother may still have the poster as proof of my very cool.  He used a science fiction like projector technology to make himself look human, so he could work and walk among us.  If the projection system was bumped too hard, it would scramble (get it, scramble) his appearance and give away his secret identity.  He had several close calls.

I had a society of superheroes he hung out with, Birdman (not the Michael Keaton one), Lightning Bolt, and Solarr (two r’s for the cool) among others, teaming up to save the world as needed.  Eggman’s arch enemy you ask?  Humpty Dumpty.  He did get put back together again, but when he was reassembled, he wasn’t right in the head.  He was kind of scary.  Humpty creeped me out.

All this imagination and creativity from reading a few funny books.

I collected for many years, loved the adventures, the incredible art and then started to look at the amazing talent creating all of those stories.  I wrote for a couple fanzines, interviewed some of those writers, artists and editors.  I went so far as to generate an online revival for The Comic Reader magazine for a year or so.  The hardcopy magazine was supposed to follow along with the online work, but it blew up on the launchpad with three issues in the can.  It was around the time of all the dot.com bubble bursting, including Stan Lee media, and the investors my business partner found had run away.  Not quite as sad as the death of Gwen Stacy, but it hurt a bunch to not be a part of celebrating the comic book art form.

So, I did what a lot of folks do who love comics; I hung around a comic store so much, they hired me to work there.  Then I bought in as a partner a few years later.  There was no money in it then, actually quite the opposite, but love of the game goes a very long way.  The store lives on, and even makes money for my former partners in crime, in Northglenn, Colorado, aptly called I Want More Comics!  The relaunch of that store also inspired by another heroic store, Time Warp Comics in Boulder.  Sometimes there are happy endings.

A few humans still miss the boat on comics, but it is a fantastic way to enjoy a story.  Incredible art, great writers and some fascinating characters.  As with books, plays, music and movies, there is plenty of art that misses the mark, yet a great number of memorable creations as well.

Appreciators of the art form quickly point to quality works like Alan Moore and David Gibbons’ The Watchmen.  And it is worth the dozens of literary references and allusions in a complex epic of what people of power might choose to do or not to do living among humanity.  However, some gentle readers here may not know non-hero works have inspired some quality film as well, such as The Road to Perdition, A History of Violence, 300 (the greeks with the great abs), Sin City, The Crow, and one of my personal favorites, the less known and very funny Scott Pilgrim.

Comics are cool.  If you’re cool, you already know that, but if you’re not, there is still hope for you.  Run, don’t walk to your nearest comic book store, operators are standing by.

Tell them Batman, no wait — tell them EGGMAN, sent you!

Participation Awards Are Not to Blame.

~ Donald J. Lund

Yes, we have some entitled humans in the U.S. of A., but I don’t think it is due to handing out participation awards.

Pittsburgh Steeler James Harrison has pushed the topic back into the spotlight after being unhappy about his sons not earning the awards so he threw them out.  And a bunch of my fellow citizens agreed with his decision. And I understand the sentiment, as Charlie Sheen offered so many times in an altered mental state, America is all about, “Winning!”

Winning is big, I will grant that.  Who doesn’t love to win?  We all  love to get really good at something and win, be it checkers or Olympic ice dancing, we want the big prize or nothing.  I should know, most of friends who survived me as well as the people who hate me all know how competitive I was.  In some ways I still am, but I don’t think I can concur with a really good football  player in this circumstance.

Forget the fact that logic does not follow the thesis of the argument.  When James Harrison asserts that sometimes your best is not good enough, he is absolutely correct.  If humans are paying attention, we learn a lot from those moments.  It is the other side of the argument sans merit.  Receiving a trophy after a loss doesn’t fix the loss or make his kids think they are champions.

The reality is, we always know the score.  We’ve always known the score.  A blue ribbon regardless of result doesn’t change anything.

I got one of those evil participation trophies, and I turned out really cool.

It was in 1976, before society worried too much about kid psychology.  It was still the era when concussions were simply treated with, “give him a couple aspirin and keep an eye on him.”

If we slipped into a coma, it was time to call the doc, but otherwise, the era of rub some dirt on it was the rule of the day.  My team was from a small town in a league where the towns around us grew much faster.  We had 14 players, played both sides of the ball against teams with 40 kids that had their own units just for special teams.  And, we got thumped.  A lot.  One time we lost 72-0. No wins in two seasons, and we were told the non-league wins we had didn’t count.   One day, we lost to a league rival 14-13 but it may as well have been a blowout for how much the loss hurt.

At the end of each season, we had a banquet and players from the Denver Broncos would speak to us and tell us war stories and that we were all cool for playing football.  At the end of the second season, we got trophies.

The trophies were kind of big and shiny and they didn’t say ‘champions’ on it, just my name and the team name and the year.  I confess, I kept it in a prominent place on my shelf for many years.  Again, I knew the score.  All the bad scores.  The trophy represented my time with a team that overcame adversity every time we took the field, undersized, outnumbered and overwhelmed.  We never quit, not on any play.

I will always be proud to be a part of that team.  It would have been easier to walk away or toss that ‘meaningless’ trophy in the garbage.  But I worked hard, played my best and got my teeth kicked in every week with thirteen other guys who didn’t know how to quit either.

I watched my sons get some of those participation trophies, and also managed to overcome adversity in key moments.  My eldest played his sport 3oo days a year, high school team captain and went off to college with the dream to play at that level.  Missed the final cut.  One thousand miles from home, with the dreams crushed, he shifted his focus to his books.  He then earned honors with not one but two college majors and earned a fellowship in a doctorate program.

I’m thinking that entitlement argument is still a little weak.

My younger son maybe appeared like the participation awards would be enough for him, but not so much.  He started his senior season on junior varsity, but then, as his varsity coach explained at the awards banquet that my son played so well, he had no choice but to keep him on the field.

Kids are smart.  We have to start giving them credit for that.  Kids always know the score.

They know a good performance in the classroom or a bad one.  The recognize their effort out of the classroom as well.  We’re so caught up in whether or not we should be harder on youth, when all we need to do is ask them to hold to the expectations they set for themselves.

Guess what?  They’ll still fail sometimes or a whole bunch. Just like their parents.

Weakness and strength are not measured in the win-loss column.  They never have been.  Did James Harrison tear up his Pro-Bowl certificates in the years he didn’t win the SuperBowl?  Two Super Bowl wins is awesome in eleven years, but there are more years of not winning it all there on the resume.  Is that AFC Title ring in the trash?  Hopefully not, but if we hold to the winning standard, that thing should be in the garbage next to those trophies of his sons.

All or nothing, right?

What will happen in the years where football is in the rearview mirror? Is winning measured only in being CEO of the company or bust?

I hate to disagree with Vince Lombardi, a coach who inspired my existence, but winning is not everything. Winning is what happens when you get back up after your worst day. Your worst moments that become the lesson. And understanding that sometimes your best is not enough, but it will have to do. Until the next moment.

There is no magic answer for the people in our world who feel entitled.  Some of the blame rests on the foundation of our personal liberty, we’re told from the start to pursue our individual happiness.  Many folks literally take those words to heart.  “What’s in it for me?” could be the unofficial subtitle of the U.S. Constitution.

Participation trophies should not be the targets.  We always know the score. If we ask the kids if they are happy with a loss or if the participation award takes away the sting of defeat, most of their answers will surprise you.

Sometimes the emphasis on winning is everything can cost kids a learning experience. I coached a basketball team to a 27-4 record, we lost the final game in the final second. The tears of defeat obliterated an amazing season for a team that wasn’t expected to win much of anything.  Hopefully, they eventually looked back on the year and remembered the upsets of higher seeded teams, the 27 wins and will feel a bit better about their work on the court.  Today’s kids aren’t the soft touch their elders think they are.  Some are, some are not, as with every generation.

Winning is as American as apple pie at a summer barbecue.

Competition only gets us so far.  Tossing trophies away will not make kids into champions.  Some of that is luck of the draw, or the location of the city, or money spent on a program. Overcoming adversity at any age is the key to being a champion on or off the field.

Writer’s Block Believes in Me

~ Donald J. Lund ~ 1 Comment

I don’t believe in writer’s block, but it definitely believes in me.

One of my favorite professors always noted that there was no such thing as writer’s block.  And I recall nodding my head in approval, in a ‘preach on sister!’ sort of way.  She didn’t insist that there are not days when ideas aren’t flowing or that one cannot get stuck in a story, she simply noted there are other parts of the job we can continue to work on during those moments when the next words in a story are tough to find.

Editing, revising, working on other stories, outline new ideas, flesh out a new character, but  allow for the process of writing to progress instead of languishing in a helpless mode of being stuck.  Those moments it feels like all of your creativity got together, planned an escape route and ran away from your brain like a Stephen King Shawshank Redemption prison break.

Of course, you set the hunting dogs out to find your creativity, but it is too clever, like Harrison Ford in the remake of The Fugitive — diving off cliffs to avoid your mind at all costs.  And you wonder, did your creativity have help getting away?  Did the monstrous entity known as writer’s block have a hand in all of this?

I recall my journalism days and there was no writer’s block impeding progress there.  Or was there?  With 15 bylines a week it didn’t seem like there were any days writing was more difficult than others.  But there were some stories I avoided, or delayed much longer than the assignments I had an easier time completing.  Subject matters were predetermined, so there was that, but some articles were definitely tougher to assemble.

Old school newspaper columns or modern blog topics were easy, because I was able to go with an interesting anecdote, or a hot topic or just something fun.

Fiction writing is proving to be a vastly different animal.

The attempt to create something unique, that feels new, of quality and a story no one else has told is a fascinating daily challenge.  The ultimate creating something from nothing experience taxes creativity like nothing else.

Perhaps my creativity isn’t trying to permanently escape, it just needs a break, or to be taxed less often.

Fiction can be fun, yet difficult.  I’ve seen those series of quotes and pictures on the ‘net, the ones “What people think I do” as a writer.  There are a bunch for writers, as there should be, so many perceptions right or wrong about the craft in the ‘real’ world.

Usually, the first photo is what my friends think I do and it shows anything from drinking champaign in limos to staring at old typewriters all day.  The next photo displays what society thinks I do, and the classic homeless person resting on a mattress on the sidewalk reading a newspaper is rather telling.  My favorite is what publishers think I do and there is a photo of monkey in a hat sitting in front of a 1940’s typewriter.  Infinite monkeys telling infinite stories indeed.  The what I think I do photos can be fun too, the best is Albert Einstein working a chalkboard.

Genius at work here people, please stand back.

The what I actually do photos are all different in those meme sets, from playing video games, to surfing the ‘net to actually hammering away at a keyboard.

My reality is, I am constantly second guessing and then third guessing everything I put on a blank page.  Is this good enough?  Will anyone actually be entertained?  How is this unique in world full of amazing stories from the beginning of time until the last season of Breaking Bad?

If writer’s block truly exists, these are the questions it asks your creativity every four and a half seconds, everyday, and into the night, in hopes of haunting your dreams.

I have the ego to do this.  Ask anyone who ever heard me on the radio or read one of my sports column opinions.  The swagger is all there.  But generating quality results on the page everyday can beat down the most confident humans on the planet.

Thus, the hunt continues.  I will track down my creativity.  I will lock it up, but maybe give it more time in the yard.  A little more time in the sun.  And I will work on other revisions and story bits until I get my creativity in the right place.  Eventually, I will win.

As for writer’s block, I will continue to refuse your existence.  I will ignore the dark whispers that question why I should even bother to write at all, or if any of my words will ever be remembered.   Ultimately, these words and stories must be told, or I’ll have entirely different sanity issues with the fiction trapped within.

No time to believe in writer’s block, or to hear those gnawing critiques of my ability hanging in the wind.  One word, one edit, one day at a time if need be.  Sorry to dismiss you old, imaginary nemesis of mine.  I can’t afford to believe in you now.

Even if you believe in me.

The Eye Opening Story Assignment

~ Donald J. Lund

I loved being a newspaper guy.

It was vastly different than radio.  I found it fascinating that I could report the same exact news story on both media outlets and yet, all feedback was from the written word, never from a broadcast.  It was about 50-50 with sports, but somehow, if it was news, it had to be written down to be official.

Of course times are changing, with print newspapers disappearing from the earth at a frightening pace.  I was lucky in my time there since so many people actually read what I wrote.

I earned my first death threat from writing about a college football coach who pushed the boundaries of NCAA rules.  It was pretty funny overall, but not for the guy who worshipped the coach.  The unhappy reader first wrote me a letter and told me he was going to kill me.  And then he followed up with a phone call.

At that point, I offered that death threats over the phone are probably a bad idea, since calls were put into phone records.  There was a moment of silence and then, an “Oh. I’m sorry.  You just really shouldn’t have written that stuff about a coach that I love, who did a really good job as a coach.”

He then provided his name, and apologized again.  I explained why I wrote what I wrote, he grudgingly agreed the coach pushed the rules around, and requested I try not to be so mean in the future.  I agreed.

Another time, a guy walked in wanting to throw punches based on how I criticized the umpires at a baseball tournament.  I stood by my words, as did the managing editor.

I had two really good managing editors, who alway backed me up.  Even when I made mistakes or pushed the existing boundaries of journalism at the time.  The best journalism is presenting facts and allowing your audience to make their own conclusions.  My opinion made it in every now and then beyond opinion columns or op/ed pieces.

My first managing editor taught me all I know of proper journalism.  He needs to teach a great number of sitting journalists out there these days who don’t seem to observe any of the objective rules or ideals of reporting.  That aside, he also gave me an assignment I hated.  At least I thought I did.

The paper was doing a special section on weddings.  One of those things that is build as a special place to sell specific ads.  To me, it had zero journalistic value.  I had pictures of horrible things to take with my camera.  Fires, car accidents, vandalism and maybe a ribbon cutting or two for a new business.

I had no time for fluff pieces for a giant advertising section!

The editorial staff even came up with a standing joke for a lot of out work, that we were not writers, we were in fact, “ad surrounders” – all our stuff was to fill in around the furniture sale ad in the corner.

My short straw draw for the wedding issue was to find a couple that had been married for 50 plus years and find out more about them.  How had they done it?

Ooh boy.  Heavy stuff.

Of course I was exceptionally wrong.  It turns out, this is the stuff of journalism.  Real stories about real people.  They were awesome.  They were kind.  They allowed me into their home, offered me a beverage and then they opened their beautiful souls and told me their story of life and love.

I can admit it now.  I cried a little.

They showed me pictures of the town, and how they met.  They told me of love and loss along the way and that it wasn’t easy, yet they didn’t think it was supposed to be.  They learned how to listen to each other and be there for each other, and how they now couldn’t imagine living life any other way.

I learned history of the city I was covering for the news.  My community.  I learned about how they enjoyed the community and the people in it.  If I was completely tuned in, I would have taken some of their advice sooner.  But the real journalist in me thought he had it all figure out.

The interview with them became the centerpiece for the wedding section, and the gracious couple thanked me.  And I thanked them.  I find myself still being grateful for that day.  A day learning about why it was I was writing things down in the first place.  To take my experience learning about humans and sharing it with the world.

Best assignment I ever had.

Fishing With the Governor

~ Donald J. Lund

A radio guy, a governor walk into an ice shack on the edge of a frozen lake…

Sounds like the start of a joke. And it was funny, yet strange encounter. Sometimes many of your worlds converge at the exact same moment, and life gets a lasting memory.

Several years into my media career in the great state of Wyoming, I was living a dream.  I worked at the local radio station and the local newspaper.  I coached little league, played softball and had the coolest little family of four in all the land.

As a part of community I loved, I stepped up and joined the Evanston Lions Club.  This choice was inspired by my grandfather, who served the Lions most of his existence.  As a little kid I helped him back in Colorado with several of their fundraiser events.  One of those events was a wheel of chance where folks could step up and win a pound of bacon, a dime per spin.  I was a micro-version of Vanna White well before the Wheel of Fortune was born. Well, I was never as cute as Vanna, and never really wore a dress either.  But I could spin a mean wheel.

I knew the Lions Club raised money and helped people.  However, other than thinking if my grandfather did it, I should do it — I had no real idea what the mission was or what I was getting into.  More than a service organization, I learned during my initiation, a primary mission of Lions Club was to aid the blind and visually impaired.  At the time, I had ‘perfect’ vision, and helping folks of all walks of life get vision help sounded like a pretty good deal.

It was a great experience.  I got to meet brand new people that loved making their community a better place.  I now had a unique opportunity to utilize my day jobs to assist my service organization.  It made for some extra work, and even less time around my little family.  All that said, I figure in those moments when one can make a difference, its best to take advantage.

No bacon wheel spinning here.  The big event for this mountain community located around 7,000 feet plus made sense.  It was an ice fishing derby.  The basic premise being that fish were caught in advance, tagged with certain prize winnings, cash being the favorite prize, and then slipped back into the frozen waters awaiting to be caught by up to 1,500 participants throughout the day.  Sponsors from as far away as Utah and across Wyoming donated and it was kind of a big deal.  And it basically set up our club budget for the year in how much help we could do.

Since I worked the media stuff, I got to record a public service announcement and play it all day on both our am and fm stations and post promotional articles and ads in the paper.  We also used the printers at the paper to help the Lions design and print a logo – basically a big cartoon looking fish appropriately named ‘Big Al’ and plastered on posters and flyers everywhere.

At the radio station, I had both my political and sports shows to promote the event, and when Evanston is the county seat, we always were part of any political tour for elections.  I had talked in with U.S. Senators and one brief phone interview with the Governor of Wyoming before, so it was usually at an arms length and no pressure kind of deal.

However, as someone who shared the promotional stage with a cartoon fish, the focus on a great community event was awkwardly aimed at me, and the live broadcast I was going to do to bring more attention to the fundraiser.  A rumor started that Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer was going to show up to help our cause.  I dismissed the idea, he had bigger fish to fry, right?

Not that day as it turned out.

When you get large gatherings of voters having fun in the winter, it is a nice way to promote a good thing and oneself.

The rumors became facts and then back into a maybe we would see the Gov, maybe we wouldn’t.  I went about setting up the remote broadcast, set up on a temporary phone line installed in this tiny, broken down ice shack.  Yes, February in Wyoming is like camping on the dark side of the moon with slightly more oxygen.  It’s really bleeping cold.

The five by five little one room building had working electricity, that was miracle enough for me, and my show launched on time at 6 am, with my pal, a local merchant, back at the radio station anchoring the broadcast should my fragile ice cave shut down mid-sentence.  I was told it was biggest derby ever, with late sign-ups off the charts, as folks lined up to catch Big Al or his prize holding cousins.

We heard if the governor was stopping by, it would be at 7 am, if he didn’t make it by then, his schedule had changed and would not be visiting.  Fair enough.  The first hour on the air flew by.  I was little bit nervous, then brushed it off.  Former Marines don’t get nervous about such things.

Ten minutes after the hour of seven and all was quiet.  I assumed the gov moved on to something more fascinating for the weekend.  I pushed out a sigh of relief that was completely visible in the frozen air.

And then the door swung open hard with a bang and a determined looking Wyoming State Trooper stepped into my tiny sphere, followed by another.  The first sin of radio is dead air.  But I was out of words, so I sent it back to the station for a break.

“Arms up,” said the first Trooper.

I must of looked confused.

“We need to frisk you,” he explained.

My eyebrow raised.  These guys had to be former offensive linemen in football.

“We’re Governor Geringer’s protective detail.  Arms up,” he repeated.

“Oh, of course,” I finally caught up with what was happening.

The other Trooper was digging through my radio equipment bag, which had a suspicious amount of electrical wiring in it, but eventually deemed harmless.

“Clear here,” one said to the other.

“Clear.”

And then one stepped back to let the Governor of Wyoming into a space not well designed to hold four grown men.  Suddenly,  I was sweating.  Fortunately, one of the Trooper stepped outside to check the perimeter again and there was enough room for me to maneuver a headset out of my bag and hand it to the governor.  Like any good politician, he reached out to shake my hand, and I shook and simply noted, “I voted for you.”

“That’s good son. What’s your name?  I gotta have a name if we’re going to talk on the air,” he said.

I was back live on the air, frozen in a brand new, unique way.  My brain was stuck in neutral.  A voice in my ear from the station, “Don you’re live, go bud.”

“Don,” I blurted.

“Nice to meet you Don,” as the governor may have witnessed nerves before. He took the lead on the show, and was extremely fun, funny and happy to be there.

About five minutes into the interview, my personality finally  returned, as did the blood to my face and we had a blast.  I mean this guy could seriously host a morning show, which is the hardest gig in radio.  Because he was on his toes witty, his laugh was real and hanging out with other folks on a cold Wyoming day was a part of his job.

Thirty minutes flew by and he was off to visit with a number of the participants of the Evanston Lions Club Fishing Derby.  Prizes were won, fish were caught, and our little Lions Club had a banner year.  The next several derbies were as big or bigger.

Politics, charity, Lions Club, radio, newspaper and community all converging at the same moment and all for a good cause.  Of course my eyesight didn’t stay perfect in the aging process, and the cost for vision care is crazy, and I have a much greater understanding of the mission of the Lions.

So, there is no punchline to the first line regarding a gov, a radio guy and an ice shack, but after being frisked really well, I sure thought that first Trooper owed me a lunch date.

Ambassador For A Day

~ Donald J. Lund

The Marine Corps for me was many things, but it was never boring — despite six years of mostly peacetime service.

One day, a tiny contingent of Marines represented all of the United States.

And we didn’t screw it up.

As a military intel guy, one of jobs was keeping an eye on the bad guys, in case things took a turn for the worse.  And to keep up with potential foes of God, Country and Corps, we had to study a lot, to keep up on potential threats.  New weapons, troop build-ups, conflicts in areas of interest, which sounds cool, but it was a lot like school.  A lot of time in rooms with no windows looking over information, photos, reports.  A desk job on a lot of days.

The only thing tougher than a desk job, was a desk job in Hawaii.  We were on assignment from our  unit to support Fleet Intelligence Center Pacific at Pearl Harbor.

Yes, a very rough assignment, but we Marines are fairly fearless, and the work needed to be done. So, of course, we obeyed our orders and worked away in the windowless buildings, researching and reporting while the sunshine remained a workplace daydream. On Fridays, we were allowed to wear our Deltas, basically the khaki short sleeve shirts, dress blues trousers with the dress blue white cover (hat for you civilian types).  Basically, it was a common look for recruiters in the peacetime era.

In other words, we looked good. We looked official, and maybe from a distance we looked important to the untrained eye.

After work we headed back to the other side of the base and there were always some interesting ships parked along the docks near our barracks.  One ship in particular caught our eye.  We’re intel guys, it is the type of thing that should catch our eye.  It was patrol boat sized, built with U.S. steel, an old hull frame from World War II era but it had some very new weapons on it.  High tech electronics, that we identified from France, German missiles on the side, and we couldn’t quite figure out what we were looking at.  By our estimates, this thing could sink half of a fleet before anyone knew it was there.

We had to know more.

We walked around to get a closer look and saw the ship’s colors, it was from Thailand.  We were leaning in to get a closer look and we were not the only ones doing some investigating.  Suddenly, the three of us looked up and there were many hands on deck looking back down on us.  I thought maybe I was breaking some kind of rules by getting that close and doing a threat assessment of their impressive tiny warship.

They started to yell some things not in English.  I was sure I had done something wrong.  I was the highest ranking jarhead on the dock, a sergeant at the time, so any trouble belonged to me.  I waited at the bottom of the ramp for someone to chew us out or ask for identification.  Someone raised their hand with what is likely the universal sign to stop or halt.  We stopped.  And then the weirdest thing ever happened.

They piped us on board.

To back up a bit, Marines are indeed a branch of the U.S. Navy, but other than being the fine fellows who drive the boats (yes, Navy vernacular prefers ships, Marines use other terms as an annoyance) to take Marines to war.  However, we knew enough that being piped on board is reserved for Captains, high ranking officials, very important persons.

This could be the only time in history a few enlisted knuckleheads were formerly piped on board.

While being piped on was pretty cool, and we did the double take to see if anyone else was around, but this was still potential trouble.  We were unarmed, none us knew any Thai and we could still be violating a number of protocols way above our pay grade.

We ignored all that and went on board, of course.

Normally, we step on board and salute the flag, and then the officer on deck, but there were no U.S. flags  in view, so we made due and saluted the dude with the boatswain whistle, because we owed him that much.  We were greeted by a eight or nine Thai sailors, all just wearing white T-Shirts and white dungarees.  Whoever was normally in charge of this ship was not around.  We didn’t see any officers, but someone in full uniform was on the bridge, and he appeared to be the equivalent of a U.S. Navy Chief.

We got a full tour, mostly of pointing, nodding heads and smiles.  To this point, none of our hosts was any more proficient at English than we were Thai.  I tried to ask questions about some of the equipment, but they were either really smart and decided not to give away info or merely had no idea what I was asking.

We ended up in the galley, it was tiny, maybe enough room for eight people, but as our hosts were curious, about a dozen people were squeezed around a tiny table.  They made us dinner.  We tried to say no thanks, shake it off and head back up, but they were very insistent.  So we ate.  I had never had Thai food before, and really nothing as authentic as that day, and it was amazingly good.

Communication was still primarily smiles, nods of yes or no and the occasional high five.  And the words “Jesus Christ” fell from the mouth of one of our hosts.

“Excuse me?”

“Jesus Christ,” he repeated, and then he pointed at a silver cross that I was wearing that had moved to the outside of my uniform during all the ladder climbing tour earlier.

“Oh, my cross,” I realized. “Yes, Jesus Christ.”

He then pulled a Buddha necklace out, and described it as such.

“That does look like a little Buddha,” I awkwardly replied.

He then switched to hand gestures and offered a trade.  I was reluctant at first, I’m not always the best theological representative, but the cross on my chest offered some comfort during my time in the Corps.  I then handed over my cross and in turn received a Buddha necklace.  We each put on our new gifts.

I asked him if he knew any more English, other than Jesus.  He shook his head no and then said, “A little.”

I then went into a long series of hand gestures that would have made any park mime proud to describe their ship and tried to ask what enemies is this meant to fight?

“Vietnam,” he said.

Better English than I thought or my mime show was spot on.

I should have known our current allies may inherit some of our problems, so it made sense, but as I understand it, those skirmishes ended about a year after I was on this ship.  It was tough looking boat.  Maybe it made a difference.

Now it was getting dark, and we saluted our way topside and prepared to leave.  I looked back to thank my trading partner, but he was tearing up and his eyes were fixed on my new Buddha.  I took it off, he shook his head no and tried to push it away.  I insisted.  He took it back with a smile and started to take off his new cross.

“You keep it,” I said, “thanks for all the good company and good food.”

Can I get a head nod?  Yes.

My fellow Marines shook some hands and we felt like we had accomplished something.  We weren’t sure what, but it felt good.  And then they played the pipe whistle once more, just for grins based on what we could see, and we disembarked.

They were waving goodbye, we simply gave them one more sharp salute. Waving wasn’t really our style.  We then began our did that just happen conversation on the way back to the barracks.  We may have broken some rules, we weren’t sure.  At least we represented well, and made some new pals.

Ambassador for a day, fan of Thailand for life.