Going Home

An image that captures my fancy was the scene with Danny Glover in "Angels in the Outfield" where Danny decides to play ball with the neighborhood kids. One of the boys hits a long ball with another kid on first. Danny yells at the kid on first to "go home, go home." The young boy does just that running towards the only home that he knows. I love that scene. Innocence and baseball, really innocence and sports (akin to life I suppose) are a unique blend of acting out one's reality - a funny mix of hope, dreams, and the practical side of life taught to you before you even realized what was happening. Of course, each of us hangs on to our own take on reality - which at times may be a bit at odds from what society is expecting or looking for. So be it. I'm writing this short piece though, following my short video, to say that I'd be hard-pressed not to believe that all sports are mental and physical challenges and worthy ones at that. Sports challenges test one's ability in a myriad of situations. Pretty obvious thoughts I suppose. But what is more interesting is that the field flow of soccer is a bit different than an individual's disciplined quest for excellence in swimming or to the mental sophistry of golf. Tom Watson served us well at 59 to challenge the field in Scotland at The Open, in more ways than one. And tackle football always impressed me in childhood because I always had to dredge up some courage to play the game. But how does it really square with who we are later in life. Or does it really matter. Actually, I think what really matters is to remember that sports is a tool that can serve us well to develop future leaders. Ricky Henderson, during a Baseball Hall of Fame interview the other day, spoke nostalgically about the love of the game that drove players fifty and sixty years ago to be the best that they could be. Ricky misses that overt reflection of love for the game today. As we all know there seems to be more of a drive to excel at the game using any method at hand. Sure, the profit motive is alive and well in sports just about as well as in Wall Street. But maybe we aren't keeping score the right way. And what about those future leaders that we may need in the years ahead. I mentioned in an earlier post that we need to be geographically literate. Well, I'm adding physical fitness in the context of working to better oneself and in concert with those around you. What I am really looking for is the right fabric to make a sustainable societal/global quilt. That right fabric is akin to using Howard Gardner's multiple intelligiences to come up with the means by which we educate our children to be better leaders, not that we all can be leaders, but that we all can better serve each other...

Playing Life

Canadian Take

This photo was shot way back when as we canoed Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada. It is a beautiful area and well worth your time to visit. But it is the "Canadian take" of mine that has always mystified me. We have traveled a fair amount in Canada, not the least of which is because at one time we lived right on the International boundary with Canada. We could essentially see Canadian land, across from Rainy Lake, right from the house. Canada, amazingly enough, is in the main entirely north of Minnesota. Geographically, that uniqueness is maybe the reason Canadians do take their portable TV on camping trips to watch hockey night. Then again, Minnesotans were like that too except they would be at the high school rink on Saturday night instead. But I just returned from Toronto to see the "Dead Sea Scrolls" at the Royal Ontario Musuem and there is a bit more up north. Go figure. Canadians are into politics big-time, try CBC, if you are curious. And having the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit they are even pushing the envelope a bit. But having visited a variety of provinces from east to west and spoken to quite the mix of Canadians I'd say I just can't sterotype them. And you know that is what is so nice about feeling the wind on a Canadian lake with a loon yodelling in the background - it is in having that special encounter with the land and people that settle in your memoryall...

Other Cultures

I've often wondered about others. In your town, from another town, or simply a face in the news. While I was in the Peace Corps some 30 years ago I took this photograph of one of our crew as we sweated on a mountainside planting seedlings near Salama, Guatemala. He has a proud face with a gentle smile. I've lost his name to time, but I remember the essence of him, his home and his family. I'm sure that he did not have the easiest of lives, but you would have never have known it. He, along with his co-workers, worked over the Gringo, Don Samuel, real well. We had a great time. I was part of a Peace Corps-Smithsonian-CARE conservation program which supported Peace Corps Volunteers across the country as they set up small tree nurseries with their Guatemalan counterparts over a diverse set of landscapes - from tropical to desert. I will never forget the times that I had there. And his was a face that I will not forget either, and therein prompts my message. Our lives are too short to let opportunities slip by at home or abroad to learn that those from over there - in other towns, other places and other cultures - often times are not unlike ourselves with many of the same worries, same joys, and same prayers.

Weather Anomalies

The other night I happened to watch a show on the History Channel about the Bermuda Triangle. Like many others I have always been fascinated by the Triangle, but pretty much agree with scientists and their theories that the conditions in the Triangle are fostered by the Gulf Stream, currents, and air/water temperatures - ingredients that conjure up weather anomalies. Anomalies is a catch all term at times for just about anything that does not really fit the bell-shaped curve of a normal distribution. Well, I encountered an anomaly on January 2, 2006. The photograph that you see here was taken on January 2, 2006 - late in the day. What was remarkable about that day and the fog is that there were thunderstorms off and on all day. Thunderstorms that seemed to almost make that fog come alive with electricity (or maybe with ionized particles). I surely do not know enough or very much at all about atmospheric chemistry, but that was an anomaly that I think that I recognized. It just happened too that that day there was a mine disaster in a nearby community - a tragic mine disaster that probably was caused by an electric charge. A second weather anomaly, that I have no photographs of, but which left an indelible mark was the July 4th, 1999 blowdown in northeastern Minnesota. It just happened that we were part of the crowd that weekend attending concerts at Bayfront Park in Duluth with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon the first night and then America and other performers the second night. The weather that weekend was memorable. For those who do not know there was a blowdown that weekend, of over 400,000 acres of Forest. We were fortunate that we were not in the blowdown itself, but I do remember the weather in Duluth that weekend. It was electric and it was an anomaly. I'm sure many of you have experienced similar weather events. I suppose that is why a lot of us do watch the Weather Channel so much.

Rockin at Muleshole

Cabin in the Pines

Driving home from church and town today, I came upon a young raccoon on the side of the road. Another family had stopped before me and were just getting out to see the furry, masked animal. It looked like he/she had been hurt. I made sure to mention to the young man not to touch the young raccoon for fear of him getting bit - just in case that the raccoon had rabies. I'm not sure whether he listened or not as I got back in my car and drove off. It did though bring back memories of long ago when my family came upon a dead raccoon at the beginning of our street in Pittsburgh (in Lincoln Place). My father said that he thought it was a female and a Mother at that (you could tell the Mom had been nursing young ones). He suggested to my brother and I that the young ones were probably nearby. Well, that was all you needed to tell a twelve year old or so and his young seven year old brother. We hustled back and found two young raccoons. I couldn't believe it. My father, who had spent a lot of time in the woods, let us keep "Nipper and Snipper" for a time. We had a great time with them too. But as they got bigger (and my father even built a really neat cage for them) the day came when my Father said it was time to leave them go. We ended up giving them to our Uncle and Aunt who owned a sporting goods store in East McKeesport. I don't really remember the details because a lot of water has gone over the dam since then, but those long ago memories brought back our 'Cabin in the Pines.' The Cabin my father and his friends built back in the early 40s before they went off to war. There were raccoons and deer and trout and stars at that Cabin. It was a summer mystical place. With fires and hot dogs and a creek. We were very lucky. You see those interactions with Mother Nature left a bit of a footprint on us. I'm not sure that many of my friends back then had the same opportunity although we were able to have some of the neighborhood kids enjoy our Cabin too. What I really wanted to say though is, after seeing that young raccoon and the boy together today, is that those interactions between Mother Nature and children are critical. Our educational system isn't worth the foundation it is built on if we do not place any importance on our children entering and understanding the biological world (i.e., the geographic world). I should mention that my Father passed away in that beautiful little Cabin forty years ago this fall. I'm sure that Ben's last statement was his last calling - to himself and each of us.

A Timeless Way

How do we pattern our language to capture who we are. Geometric nuances that take our biological fingerprints and softly interlace them across the landscape using natural processes. It is time to balance our lives. The historical context for where we have been will prompt our discovery of where we shall be.

A relatively small book, "A Pattern Language," yet there are design seeds that tell a story and yet may tell the tale.