Focus on the Diagnosis

In college, I had horrendous wrist pain in my left arm.  I thought it was tendonitis, which was something that my doctor seconded.  It was terrible. I had trouble typing or carrying things.  Eventually, I was diagnosed with Keinbach’s Disease, which is where a wrist bone is cut off from blood supply and ultimately dies.  I had to have wrist surgery to have my radius bone shortened to take pressure off of it, thereby stopping the pain.  My wrist was permanently affected in strength and usefulness, but at least it didn’t hurt any more.

Early in our marriage, when we first were having kids, I developed some serious joint pain.  My wrists and hands were weak, and I once again had trouble holding things.  Remembering the problems I had before, I was understandably distressed. I was worried that maybe I had Keinbach’s again - not really understanding that can’t happen.  The pain was really debilitating. I thought it might be Carpal Tunnel, since I used my computer a lot for my job.  I switched to an ergonomic keyboard and mouse.  I had to get a different desk so my wrists were not tilted the wrong way.  I switched chairs to try to help.  The pain was still horrible.  Finally, at a doctor’s appointment my physician was asking me questions about the pain.  I always had joint pain and weird joints, so I wasn’t overly troubled by things hurting. It was the intensity of pain that drew my attention.  But there was a much bigger problem going on.  I had nodes in my elbows.  There was constant pain that moved all over my body.  My doctor ordered blood tests and I found out that I had an advanced case of Rheumatoid Arthritis.  The wrists were just a symptom of the overall disease.  It didn’t matter how many wrist braces I wore; nothing was going to get better until I started dealing with the RA.

I am reminded of this as our country faces yet another challenge in this crazy year 2020.  Except this is not a problem unique to this year.  I am talking about the issue of race in America.  While it has burst into our consciousness again thanks to the repulsive actions surrounding George Floyd, this issue has been woven into our history from the very beginning.  You could argue that the history of America is the history of one group climbing higher by pushing others lower. From soon after the first colonists arrived, people of color found themselves on the receiving end of the insatiable need of whites to dominate everything in their path.  Examining the history of this country - the true history - one should not come away with a favorable picture, something to be proud of.  The more history I learn, the more offended I become.  The more disheartened I am.  I am ashamed of what has happened in the name of establishing America.  While I appreciate living in the Land of Plenty and I have benefitted by being one of those who received that Plenty, I am continually horrified by what has happened to grant me that place and keep me there.

George Floyd’s murder was a despicable act.  It has been the spark for a much needed discussion of race in America.  Much of the anger has been directed towards the police officers involved.  Naturally, the focus also has been magnified to include all police officers. Inevitably, this has led to an overall debate about police brutality, inherent racism in the police force, and even police training.  There are definitely some topics that need to be discussed and changes that need to be made.  However, this singular focus creates potential disaster.  The issue is not police brutality.  Yes, that is a very important issue.  It is something that needs to be talked about in general and regarding race specifically.  But this is also a symptom of something much larger.  Zooming to focus only on the police issue is robbing treatment of the more important disease.  Just like my wrist pain, police treatment of blacks is a symptom of something more insidious, something we must fight.  THAT is the diagnosis.  THAT is where we should be focused.  

I’m not saying to ignore the police situation.  But what I am offering up is that it becomes a too easy distraction.  When police are involved in the discussion, there will always be people who refuse to discuss any further.  The police are a vital element of our society.  There must be a line drawn for “law and order” and a group of people willing to stand there defending that line.  And, like many people retort whenever this discussion arises (as it does far too often), not all cops are bad.  I have dear friends who are police officers and who are married to police officers.  They are good people who are doing the right things.  And most of us can say the same thing.  During the recents protests and inexcusable riots, I have been concerned for these officers as well as the citizens exercising their right to protest.  You can see the problem in this issue, right? We keep swirling around and around, accomplishing nothing.  Meanwhile, the root issue, the disease, goes unhandled.

We MUST do better.  Yes, I want police officers to be held accountable for their actions.  Yes, I want police to be more careful in their dealings with blacks and all people.  Over 7,000 people were killed by officers from 2010-2019.  A disproportionate number of those were black (over 33% despite being 12% of the US population.)  But I don’t want this to become a fight between whose lives matter more - black lives or blue lives.  Even if we completely solve every single institutional issue in the police system, we still will have problems due to the racism that is so deeply scarred into the country.  

This discussion is not a comfortable one.  No one said it should be.  The other day my wife and I were having an argument with one of our children.  Another child was very distressed by this.  He wanted it to just go away.  I tried to explain to him that making the argument disappear was more unhealthy than to actually have it.  People need to be able to talk through things, to express their feelings and opinions, their hurts and disappointments.  The argument ultimately led to a greater understanding in our family, which was a good thing.  We had a goal, though.  We aimed for reconciliation and were able to achieve that.  In America, we need to have a similar approach.  We need to have a goal of reconciling the races.  We need to do whatever we can to heal this shattered land.  There are going to be very painful and awkward conversations.  Seismic shifts in our country need to happen.  Those kind of things never happen easily.  But it is more unhealthy to avoid these discussions than to face the pain.  

Even if it makes you feel uncomfortable, even if you feel angry or offended, there is a fact that needs to be embraced early on in the process.  Black people in this country are not seen as equals.  They never have been.  They are not given equal opportunities.  They are not living on equal footing.  The concept of White Privilege may be troubling to think about, but it is real.  My son can leave our house, drive around, wear whatever he wants.  He will not be harassed or suspected of anything.  He can shop and not be hassled.  My wife and I can go car shopping or look into buying a house with all options presented before us.  The black family down the street from us do not experience life the same way.  Nothing I did led and nothing they did led us to these diverse experiences.  That is the difference between being white and black in this country.  Now, there is a large group of people in this land who take this even further and hate blacks.  White supremacists, outright racists.  The fact that this subsection even still exists is nauseating.  Yet they are here and they have more of a platform than ever.  Dealing with that group is going to require much different tactics.  Beyond them, though, there is the much larger slice of the population who harbor racist thoughts - maybe subconsciously, maybe overtly.  These people harbor thoughts that affect how they see and treat blacks (and all minorities, but we will keep the focus on black/white issues today).  They could believe that blacks are inherently lazier and more violent than whites.  They could believe blacks aren’t smart enough to be quarterbacks, supervisors, head coaches.  They may cross the street to avoid blacks.  They might assume that blacks in the store are using welfare to pay.  They could think that blacks are more likely to use drugs, to get pregnant out of wedlock, to abandon their families.  They might refer to young black men as thugs and young black women as sluts. If they see a black person driving a nice car or wearing jewelry, the thought could pop up about how those things were paid for - or if they even were.  They might swear that blacks want everything handed to them.  Or they may drift closer to the white supremacists, touting the belief that blacks are the descendants of Ham and cursed forever.  Conversely, they may flee those extremes and settle for a more low-key, subtle racism.  “You ever notice how black people…”

I grew up in the South - if you consider Florida the South.  I do.  I was exposed to racism throughout my formative years.  I went to a Christian school where there were a grand total of three black students in my class throughout elementary: Tanisha, Tamara Kay, and Richard.  Once in middle school, I only had Phaedra and/or Ellis in most of my advanced classes.  There was a similar case in high school where I usually would only have some combination of Tasha, Sam, and Ellis in my higher level classes.  That was it.  The way things were districted, blacks were directed into other schools.  So in my school, it wasn’t unusual to see blacks treated differently.  Administrators were more likely to punish black students than whites, and the punishments were usually greater.  Subtle comments would be made by teachers or students. My eighth grade math teacher once told us to write something on our hands.  Then she said, “Well, Phaedra you may need to use white out.”  Everyone had one of those “did that really just happen” moments.  She didn’t say it to Ellis, though, which I pointed out to him.  He said, “She knew better.”  That and the fact she didn’t like Ellis.  Phaedra was one of the sweetest, quietest people ever.  Ellis wasn’t.  He was one of my best friends all through middle and high school, but everyone knew not to mess with Flip.  He stood up for himself and his friends.  My mom was born in Florida, just like me and my kids.  Her parents were from Canada and Pennsylvania, though.  My dad was from Vermont.  People assume racism is worse in the South, but from personal experience I can tell you that isn’t true.  Racist beliefs and comments were just as prevalent in my house as in any other Southern home.  It isn’t based on geography; it is based on the heart.  I learned just about every racist term there is from my father.  When we said he was a bigot, he would respond, “I’m not a bigot; I hate everyone the same.”  Or he would launch into the “it isn’t a stereotype if it is true.”  His comments were so audacious that they were easier to identify and avoid.  My mom’s and her family’s statements were tougher because they came from people who would not be labelled “racist.”  There were many times my mom would have to fix things around the house in a less than professional way.  Like holding the falling tile up in the bathroom by putting contact paper on it.  Or duct taping the drainpipe together.  She would call it “N*****-rigging” it.  I remember in college telling her that was a completely inappropriate term, which she seemed shocked to hear.  So she switched to “jerry-rigging” or “MickeyMousing.”  When I talked to her about dating a black girl, she cautioned me that my father would go nuts.  I already knew that, but I still argued that it wasn’t wrong.  “I don’t personally think it is wrong, but if you married one I would be scared for your children.”  Of course, I had a friend at church in high school who explained how dating blacks was wrong because “cats and dogs don’t get together.”  I was floored because he was one of my best friends and not someone who I would say was racist.  “We aren’t different species!  The correct analogy would be black dogs and white dogs.”  There was a lingo that was used in the world I lived which just became common to me.  Rap and hip-hop music were identified as “jiggaboo” music.  People down the street in “brown town” were called monkeys.  Black babies were called “niglets.” Rants were launched about drooping waistbands, durags, gold teeth and grills, backwards caps.  This isn’t to condemn my family or community.  My mother was one of the most godly women I ever knew.  I loved her deeply and valued what she taught and how she lived her life. However, even in that wonderful lady rested a river of evil thoughts towards a group of people. I want to show that even among “good people” there is a tendency to embrace these beliefs.  That is how deep this cancerous mindset is rooted.

The temptation among Americans is to try to compartmentalize racism to the Civil War or the South.  We desperately want to pretend that it is something of the past, something limited to one region.  But that is NOT TRUE.  We have to accept this to start to understand what we are dealing with.  Racism has been ingrained in every step from the beginning of this nation.  The earliest colonists stole from, murdered, banished the native people already residing in this land.  Slave ships rolled up off the coast in 1619.  The very documents this nation was founded on classified blacks as 3/5 of a person.  The country grew into a world power because it was the only empire-building nation that did not have to pay for labor costs due to slavery (and indentured servitude and mistreating immigrants).  The Civil War was fought over slavery.  (Let’s just concede that point. It isn’t worth fighting on that one thing; there are more than enough other examples.)  For those of you who feel the 1st and 2nd Amendments are endangered by other groups in this country, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were passed to “solve the problem” of racial divide.  But it took one hundred years before the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960 actually gave teeth to these amendments.  Think about that: there were amendments outlawing mistreatment of blacks and other minorities for one hundred years.  Yet there still was the poll tax and the literacy tax and gerrymandering and stripping of voting rights for felons and voter intimidation and moving polling places.  And the sad thing is, those things still exist!  We have been involved in two elections so far since we moved back to South Carolina and both of them moved and shuttered polling places within a week of the election.  Rigging election districts is an even bigger practice now than ever, ensuring a concrete divide between parties.  ELEVEN states still have various bans on ex-felons voting - only half of them in the South.  This is not over.  It isn’t even close.  It isn’t relegated to the South, either.  If you want to have your eyes opened about America’s history with racism, I am going to list some places to go.  Be prepared, because after you look at these things you will never see this country the same again.  And that is a good thing.  Until we fully acknowledge the wickedness that courses through our veins, we will always be guilty of the sin of racism.

• Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson.  This book will devastate you.  After I read it, it took me weeks to be able to think clearly.  I could argue I’ve never come back, for which I am glad.
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann.  It is easy to justify slaughtering an indigenous people if you see them as unintelligent savages.  But that was a construct of the colonizers/explorers/invaders.  You’ll be shocked at what America looked like before the white man arrived.
• New York Time 1619 Project  This investigative project looks at the history of slavery in America on the 400th“anniversary” of its arrival on our shores.  It is brilliantly executed and horrifying.
• The Underground Railroad by Colton Whitehead.  You know those books that are so well written that you keep reading even when you are so disgusted by what is happening that you want to be sick?  This is that book.
• Tulsa Massacre of 1921  I am also including a link to the Wikipedia page on this event, which also tells more on the attacking aircraft during the massacre.  There also are links on the right side of the page with several other events along this line.
• Minneapolis (White) Race Riots   This was an interesting post by Nora McInerny about 1930s era Minneapolis and the way whites drove blacks out.
• Ex-Felon Voting Rights - If you aren’t sure how this applies, I am including several different sources discussing this issue.  Some of them surround Florida’s Amendment 4 in 2018.  The Amendment was passed by nearly a 2 to 1 margin, yet it still has not been put into practice - as evidenced by it is still being debated and hashed out.  Voter disenfranchisement is a racially motivated technique that has been in place since the Civil War.  It has taken many different forms and this is just another one.  It was a Jim Crow era law where states would create a law against loitering, for example, and make that a felony level crime.  That would mean any unemployed black man who was arrested for standing around, since they couldn’t get a job and had nowhere to go, could be banned from voting for life.  The number of people affected by this issue is staggering, and it could ultimately change the 2020 election.
• The Original 33 in Georgia. These were the first 33 blacks serving in the Georgia state legislature.  They were thrown out, after being elected, then brought back in, then permanently ejected.  One-quarter of them were beaten or killed.  The final one left in 1907, after which no blacks served in the legislature for 55 years.  Again, wikipedia to add more info.
• Blacks in Public Office This is almost a microcosm of racial mindsets in this country.  During Reconstruction, blacks ascended to public office.  They were elected to national and state- level positions and filled many governments roles. By 1913, those numbers had plummeted.  The backlash against the South after the Civil War was strong, but in time the segregationists reclaimed political strength and reinstituted their policies.  Woodrow Wilson, elected in 1912, is more known for his involvement in World War I and failed League of Nations.  He had been president of Princeton and Governor of New Jersey.  He has this image of an intellectual, a devout Presbyterian.  Yet, he was the picture of a good man doing nothing and letting evil to arise.  He didn’t personally segregate government offices, but he let each office decide if they wanted to segregate.  He didn’t allow the federal government to help blacks who were assailed as they migrated north to fill industrial jobs.  He spoke out against lynching, but did nothing to outlaw it.  (The repercussions echo even today.)  He allowed Reconstruction to die and whites to reclaim the governments in the South.  

This list is hardly comprehensive, but it is a place to start.  We have to do something.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a Christian and that my faith is what guides and defines me.  However, I will be the first to say that the Church(capital C means Church Universal - all Christians; little c means individual church) is failing HORRIBLY in this battle.  The Church should be at the very forefront, demanding social change.  It should be leading the charge, embracing all colors.  Go and read 1 John and see what God teaches about LOVE.  It is what defines being a Christian.  Not judgment, criticism, hate, conservatism.  What part of love is shooting a black man because he was looking at a house?  What part of love is defending a police officer for choking out a suspect?  What part of love is trying to find a justification for why someone was killed?  Go read the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10.  I know a lot of you have heard of this story or read it.  But it is a great story for today’s situation.  Here’s my version of the story.  A dude gets jacked up by villains.  He is laying there in a big mess.  A pastor walks by and ignores him.  Actually, he crosses over to the other side to avoid him.  Then another minister walks by and does the same thing.  Then a Samaritan comes up.  Now, the Samaritans were hated by the Jewish people.  It wasn’t over something as minor as skin color.  Long ago, some of the Samaritans had collaborated with the Syrians when they occupied Israel.  Even though they were of the same bloodlines, the people of Samaria were labelled unclean by Jews.  This got so ugly that the Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple and the Samaritans defiled the Jewish temple by leaving bones in it.  It was ugly.  This Samaritan dude comes up and helps the injured Jewish man.  (The big twist in today’s setting is that the beat up man would have been white and the helper would have been black.)  Now, the Samaritan didn’t ask the beat up guy if he deserved the beating.  He didn’t say that he needed to review the video to make sure he didn’t do something first before the bandits jumped him.  I mean, maybe the victim had mouthed off.  Maybe he went through the wrong neighborhood.  Maybe he had a criminal history.  Maybe he didn’t do what the bandits asked him to do right away.  The Samaritan didn’t ask questions; he just helped.  Of course, this isn’t a real story.  Yeah, that’s right.  Jesus made it up.  So it wasn’t just some fluke example of someone doing something nice that made it onto YouTube.  “Samaritan finds Jewish mugging victim. You’ll never guess what happens next!”  It was something that Jesus - the person that Christians value the most - made up as an example of how we should act to each other.  We should take care of even our worst enemies.  How much mores should this apply to people who merely have a different amount of pigment?  

Now the religious leaders of that time got irate at the story.  That kind of angry response from religious people has been a theme throughout history, actually.  Just a cursory glance at US History will demonstrate that those who embrace Christianity have usually been the worst at racial understanding.  And, unfortunately, that is still the situation today.  Christianity has become so tangled up in politics that churchgoers find themselves forming logical contortions to defend their support of Donald Trump in the face of overtly racist behavior and statements.  “He is holding up a Bible in front of a church! What a righteous man!”  Don’t be fooled!  That photo-op is not indicative of what that man believes.  The tear-gassing of peaceful protesters so he could take that picture is where he stands.  His flirting and defending of white-supremacists is where he stands.  He calls whites demanding the right to shop and not wear masks and racists violently protesting in Virginia “fine Americans.”  He calls blacks protesting “thugs.”  The 70+ year old man shoved by the cops intentionally fell.  (Reminds me of the police case down in Riviera Beach when I was a kid when the wife claimed her husband fell onto the knife…. over 20 times.)  He is master at muddying the waters.  His behavior is not unlike how focusing on the police minimizes and damages the racism issue.  He says protestors aren’t patriotic.  They are dishonoring the country and the flag.  He says to get those sons of bitches off of the football field.  Let me be perfectly clear: patriotism is not blindly agreeing with everything a country does.  A person does not betray his or her country by protesting inappropriate, illegal, and inexcusable actions that country is doing. I am not dishonoring my father’s military service by calling people to change the way that minorities are treated.  A true patriot demand that the country lives up to the sacrifices made over the decades by its soldiers and citizens.  America is NOT proving it deserves that blood that was shed.  This country that promises freedom, liberty, and happiness to its citizens need to adjust its mindset and behavior to heal this rift, to make things right, to reconcile the races.  I believe this is the most important issue in the nation right now.  I believe it is the most important issue that faces the Church right now.  It is a crack in the foundation of both that is threatening to rip both apart.  The diagnosis has been handed down; we need to work on treatment.  Now.

Kickin the Astros

Baseball was never my favorite sport.  I was more of a football guy.  Part of that was because my dad didn't really get into baseball, and he loved football.  My brother was a big basketball fan, and my dad did enjoy that.  We had SuperStation 17 WTBS on our television, so we were force fed Braves and Hawks games.  If sports were on the tv, it would primarily be football or basketball - unless the Olympics were running.  We watched those religiously.

We also were an eclectic team-loving family.  We lived in West Palm Beach, down in South Florida.  Usually people gravitate towards teams that are close or that are generational.  Dad grew up in Vermont, so there wasn't any hometown team.  Lots of New Englanders lean towards the Boston teams, but he only did that for the Celtics.  He was a huge Bears fan; I have no clue where that allegiance originated.  He didn't cheer for anyone in baseball.  The natural thing would have been to cheer for the Miami teams, since they were the closest.  But there is something a lot of people don't know about Floridians: lots of Floridians detest Miami.  I am one of those.  Miami is not the same as Florida.  There is very little I like about Miami, except the Cuban food.  So my natural inclination was to cheer against any Miami team.  My dad did like The U's football team, but that was mostly because they were mean.  (Not joking.)  As for the rest of us, my brother liked the Lakers, Redskins, and Southern Cal - he hated baseball.  My sister didn't care.  My mom cheered for the Broncos, because of John Elway (this is not the most confusing of my mom's stances, but it is up there).  My grandmother loved the Bravos.  I hated them.I was a pretty typical kid, a front runner.  I picked my teams because they were doing well when I was young: Yankees, Cowboys, University of Georgia. I did like the Hawks, but mostly because of Dominique Wilkins.

I have not really aligned myself with the belief that you have to stick with one team your whole life.  I remember Bill Simmons writing an article years ago about sports monogamy and the only reasons you can abandon a team.  But it seems really silly to force a 45 year old to root for the same teams he did as a kid, just because he did as a kid.  I also used to wear footie pajamas, pick paint off the chair in the living room and eat it, and run around in clothes with Garfield on them.  I also used to wear kneesocks, apparently.  Do I have to stick with those poor choices?  I say no.  When I thought I was going to go to FSU, I started rooting for them.  When I actually did go to UCF,  completely switched my allegiance to them.  That is a situation where a lifelong allegiance to a team should be expected.  They are my primarily fandom and always will be.  #NationalChamps2017  My move to Orlando also changed my basketball team to the Magic.  I definitely justify that because I feel like I would have been a Magic fan if they had been around when I was a kid.  Plus, entering a close proximity to a team seems like a justifiable reason to start rooting for them.

The Cowboys and Yankees remained my teams through college and into my 20s.  But then I started to wonder why I liked these teams.  They both were teams with a massive fanbase, which actually made them kind of annoying.  They were the proverbial bandwagon teams in each league.  And, more that that, they didn't do business the way I felt groups should do business.  Jerry Jones owned the Cowboys and he was/is a obnoxious narcissistic person.  He kicked one the most revered coaches (Tom Landry) to the curb without remorse.  He kicked his own friend and successful coach (Jimmy Johnson) to the curb because Johnson got too much credit for the Cowboys' success.  And in the decades since that, he has made so many stupid decisions just because he wanted to be right.  I ended up switching to the Jaguars because my wife's family lived in Jacksonville and would go to games once in a while.  Also, my argument for the Magic could be used here (proximity, didn't exist in 1980).

The Yankees were a different story.  I mostly walked away from baseball after they lost a season to a strike.  I would wander back and forth to the sport when notable things happened: Cal Ripken's attendance record, home run record chase, Yankees winning.  But time and again, I kept walking away.  And I really got sick of the Yankees.  They made a joke of the salary cap, basically buying their way to World Series after World Series and dared to call it "a dynasty."  How is it a dynasty when you're paying twice as much for players as everyone else?  But the killer moment for me was the Mitchell Report about steroid use.  Twenty-six Yankees were named in the report as using performance enhancing drugs.  Twenty-six!  That is, as the NCAA says, a lack of institutional control.  I was done with them and with baseball.  I was interested when the Rays made it to the World Series - a team with extremely low payroll making it due to great players and coaching (what a concept).  I made the kids pay attention when the Cubs won the Series because it was history making.  Overall, though, baseball was less important than hockey.

Then we moved to Houston.

We have moved around quite a bit and been in cities with beloved teams before.  But I never really picked up on the complete marriage of team and city like with Houston and the Astros.  Maybe it is because people can actually experience the relationship.  Other sports are so expensive to go to.  The Texans' tickets were ridiculous.  We were able to get tickets to one preseason game and sat in literally the top row of the stadium.  For five people, Rockets tickets were very prohibitive, so we never saw them at all.  (This was compounded because I was boycotting Dwight Howard at this point.)  But Astros tickets are pretty easy to come by.  You can pay $8 or $10 and get a good seat.  We went to several games and the kids had a lot of fun.  Their classmates were mostly Astros fans.  There were Astros billboards and commercials.  George Springer lived out in our neck of town.  Plus, they were a fun franchise to root for.  They went from suckville to dominant in just a few years.  The players had fun and were lighthearted.  The manager was great.  We started to feel ourselves pulled into their orbit.  (HAHA  Astros. Orbit. ... Ok moving on)  My kids have never really been sports fans (although they loved watching quidditch).  However, when the 2017 season started, they wanted to know everything.  When did it start? How were they doing? How did Altuve do?  They had Astros shirts and hats.  We went to a couple of games and they had so much fun.  Our whole family had turned into Astros fan.  As a sports-loving dad who never had sports-loving kids (except for UCF, because it was important to me), this was awesome.  We would actually watch games on TV sometimes.

Then Hurricane Harvey hit.  I remember the Yankees going to the World Series after 9/11 and the Saints winning the Super Bowl right after Katrina, and how it seemed like supernatural forces made those things happen.  They were called teams of destiny.  That is totally what happened in Houston in 2017.  The city had been beaten and bruised.  We all felt horrible and completely overwhelmed by what had happened.  How does a city recover from a flood of that magnitude.  We had lived in Columbia during their flood just a couple of years earlier, but Harvey made that one seem small.  The Astros were on a road trip during the storm and couldn't get back home to play.  The Texas Rangers forever got on my poop list for how they wouldn't help.  But the team talked about how they felt, flying over the city.  They looked out the windows and wept, knowing friends and family were struggled down below.  And it pushed them.  I think it pushed management to trade for Justin Verlander.  That news hit my phone while I was sitting in our crappy hotel during our forced evacuation.  Even reading it made me happy.  The team came home and put the city on its back.  We went to the second game after the flooding.  They had first responders on the field to thank them.  There were so many things going on to help the victims and shine light on the situation.  While St. JJ Watt was raising his millions, the Astros were lifting up their millions.  The water slowly receded, the city slowly recovered, and the Astros went on a tear.  The whole city could feel it.  The team of destiny.  It was as if the Houston Metroplex was pushing energy into those players.  The number of last minute comebacks?  Verlander was unbeatable.  They stormed through the rest of the season like a juggernaut and hit the playoffs.

I had been around successful teams in the past.  The Magic made a finals run while I was in Orlando.  The Bucs won a Super Bowl while I later lived in Orlando.  South Carolina had several sports teams have title-chasing and title-winning seasons.  Clemson has also been quite successful while we lived in the Palmetto State.  And that UCF National Title, of course.  But I have never felt anything like the Astros 2017 playoff run.  People everywhere had Astros gear on.  It was actually hard to get stuff, so many people had been buying it.  I remember walking out of Target one day with my Astros shirt on.  An older lady asked me if the game had started yet.  Another guy yelled "Astroooos."  The kids would jump in the car after school and ask what the score was.  (We had to play all the afternoon games because, face it, the Astros still aren't the Yankees or Red Sox or Dodgers.)  Houston took out the Red Sox 3 games to 1.  Then they had to fight the Yankees.  (Grrrrrr)  They went up in the series, but then fell behind 3 games to 2.  New York had to win one game.   But, in classic Astros style, they won both games behind their powerful lineup and great pitching.  They were in the World Series.

Team of destiny.  Up against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Another big salary team.  Unbeatable pitchers.  Huge stars.  It was a slugfest.  Back and forth.  Come from behind victories, blown leads.  Then Game 7, Houston teed off on Yu Darvish and ended up walking to a 5-1 victory.  World Champion Houston Astros.  The city was out of its mind.  You thought Astros gear was hard to get?  Try to get championship gear.  It would come into the stores and get swooped right up.  The parade was insane.  School districts cancelled school for people to go.  (Not our district.  They were trying to make up the 21 missed days.)  My kids knew what it felt like to cheer for a champion - a feeling they felt a couple months later with UCF.  But this one was not an 'alleged' title.  It was official and amazing.

The teams in 2018 and 2019 both made impressive runs.  They didn't make the series in 2018, but still were fun to watch and cheer for.  We moved back to South Carolina, but still followed the Astros religiously.  Our kids would be the only ones in the classes with Houston gear on, but we didn't care.  The 2019 World Series was heartbreaking.  How come the Astros, who were so dominant at home, never could win in their own stadium?  They seemed like a different team in DC vs Houston.  In the end, Washington got their title and Houston figured it would just gear up for next year.  Even though a bizarrely large number of free agents left, there was still the belief that Jeff Luhnow and AJ Hinch would keep things rolling.

Rumors of sign stealing started to circulate.  It was hard to hear.  Like most fans, I wanted to give my team the benefit of the doubt.  They won outright on the field.  They were just the better team.  Louder rumors swirled.  They are good guys.  Remember how they embraced the city?  Altuuuuuuve.  A former player dropped the bomb and flat out stated that the team was stealing signs.  He said how it was done and how often.  There was no denying it at this point.  The league got involved.  I didn't want to believe it.  I still hoped this dude was lying or something.  Nope.  Hinch and Luhnow are suspended for a year.  "Oh no.  Well Sean Payton was suspended for a...."  Then they were fired.  The team was fined.  No players were punished, but so many were implicated.  Even the former "heart and soul" players like Alex Cora and Carlos Beltran go fired from their new manager jobs because they were named as two of players who the formulated the scheme.  Since then, the Astros have been about as tone-deaf as a team can be.  Their social media team has been working overtime, trying to distract everyone from the situation.  They haven't talked about it, but they have waved around the awards they won last year.  And they had their fan appreciation day.  And they made appearances.  And they let two really good men take all the blame.  And they hope that the city will forget what happened.

How?  How can they?  How can I?  Like I said when I abandoned the Yankees, I cannot support cheaters.  I am a dad with three wonderful kids.  How can I stand there and tell them how important honesty and integrity and fair-play is?  How can I call out injustice and wrongdoing and lies?  How can I say those things and then still wear my Astros cap and shirt?  I can't.  This wasn't a one-time thing.  This wasn't an accident.  "Oops, our camera accidentally aimed at the catcher all game and we accidentally tracked his signs and accidentally banged on a trash can in a method that accidentally alerted players."  Nope.  Sorry.  Not working.  I have some really cool Astros caps.  They mean a lot to me.  I looked around online for an asterisk pin to put on them.  But right now I can't even bring myself to wear them.  I don't want to read news about the team.  I can't cheer for them.  Everything they've done in the last three years has to be questioned.  It is all fake.

Even 2017.  That is what makes me the most outraged.  All of that goodwill and destiny was manufactured.  It wasn't real.  They weren't playing fair.  When Yu Darvish unraveled in the games against Houston, was it really him tipping pitches? Or was it the Astros stealing them?  Those great guys we rooted for?  The gutsy, come from behind, never say die players.  They were cheating?  Of course they came back later in a game.  By then they had seen multiple appearances by starting pitchers or they saw relievers they had a compendium of stolen signs from.  That title feels dirty.  That experience of an entire city pushing a team forward - it isn't so amazing when the team had greased the track in front of them.  And I know that this is probably not isolated to Houston.  But I don't care.  "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it?"  I want my kids to have integrity when no one is watching and when everyone is.  I want them to be the one kid in the room not cheating, the one worker not padding stats, the one driver following rules, the one taxpayer filing honestly, the one person who returns extra change or extra accidental products, the one customer who points out when the waiter forgets to charge for a drink.  How can I want them to live up to that standard and then cheer for people who don't?  Trust me, this question troubles me on many fronts in our world today.  But with sports, at least in that realm I can do something about it.  I have that world in my control.  So I will walk away from baseball again.  I'll turn my back on the Houston Astros.  We had some fun, but I don't know if any of it was real.  And I don't need that kind of garbage in my life. 

Unpredictable

 Natalie set up camp in the breach position. This was especially annoying because Heather was desperately wanting to have a VBAC - a “normal” birth after Josiah’s Caesarian delivery. We kept checking to see if she changed position, hoping all the way until the final day that she would move. Right before our final appointment prior to delivery day, Heather said that it really felt like Nat had spun around. At the appointment itself, the doctor said she that she agreed. The plan was to do an ultrasound on delivery day to verify Natalie was still ready to go. If not, we would do the C-Section. When the picture popped up, Natalie has switched back with her tushie where her head should be. Now, babies are pretty big at this point, so that kind of flipping around doesn’t happen much. It was quintessential Natalie - always unpredictable and doing things her own way.

My mother gave Natalie dolls several times. She gave her handmade ones, which Nat would never play with. She also gave her ones with porcelain faces that really were supposed to just be displayed. These were the ones Natalie would use, until the rubber bands holding them together snapped.  When she rode in her stroller through the mall, nothing would get her bopping around faster than hearing Gwen Stefani and No Doubt on the radio. No standard kid-friendly music for this girl! Disney princesses? Sure. But not the ones available on everything. She loved Jasmine, who wasn’t on ANYTHING!

Once Natalie got into school, she continued her unique approach to life. While whipping her hair back and forth to the song of that name, she banged her head against the counter - wigging out her teacher. The next year, the school brought an owl in for the kids to see. Young Natalie came home and told us that the owl had pecked her on the nose during the assembly. We were a little stunned that we didn’t hear anything about this. A few months later she told us that the owl never pecked her. In fact she didn’t even get to see the owl. It was only for the older kids and she was jealous that she didn’t get to go, so she made up the story about the owl. What?

Nat was a sneaky little fink. We had this big pantry in our apartment. She would ask if she could have a Pop Tart. We would say yes. She would go into the pantry and eat one Pop Tart and then come out with the other one - with us none the wiser. She would sneak into the pantry to eat marshmallows. She did it so often she made herself sick and now can’t eat them at all. We had a computer in the office where the kids could play on our safe browser. They got into playing Club Penguin. They could get different characters and decorations and such. One day we hear Josiah screaming. “Natalie!! What did you do to my penguin?” We ran in there to see what had happened. He pointed at the screen and his penguin had a rainbow wig, a pink dress, and crazy decorations. Nat had logged into his account and spent his coins to prank him. We had a very hard time keeping a straight face over that one.

Justice. It used to be her favorite clothing store, but it has always been something she pushes for. From elementary school she has hated when students are treated unfairly by other students or by teachers. She has gotten herself into trouble socially and in the classroom for speaking her mind about situations. Consistently she stands up for the underserved, the underrepresented, the misunderstood. Her mature assessments of life has challenged us for years. She has made us really think about the world around us and how to interact with it.

Today is her sixteenth birthday. We had ramen for lunch (with fried baby octopi) and boba tea. Her cake was a big cup of tea as well. That’s a far cry from the usual burger and pizza places where most of our family birthdays are spent. But it makes perfect sense for Nat. She is unique. She is unpredictable. And I love it.

I love having a challenging daughter. I love having a rebel. I love her. She is spunky and salty and snarky. She is thoughtful and generous and hilarious. She is the most loyal friend someone could hope for. And she is a constant gift to us. Happy birthday sweet girl.

The Ornaments

My brother died in September.  I haven't written much about it because .... well .... I still am not entirely sure what to say.  In one of the few moments in my life, words fail me.  I've lost family members before.  Four grandparents, both parents, two grandparents-in-law.  All of those were kind of expected.  My dad was surprising in the moment.  He hadn't given any indication that he was going to die soon, but he also had a history of heart attacks and all other kinds of infirmities.  My mom had cancer and had been telling me she was dying for over 30 years.  The grandparents all were older and having health issues.  They all hurt - loss always hurts in so many ways.  But this... this was something completely different.

Chris was 50.  He shouldn't be gone.  This is the guy who was always moving and playing and working.  He worked outdoors at a landscape supply company.  His job included moving huge trees and bags of mulch and other massive things that people use in yards that I don't know about because I know nothing about yards.  He surfed and biked and played basketball and played football and -- he played everything.  He worked out.  This constant physical activity was at the crux of our faceoffs for so many years.  He was all about outside; I was all about inside.  We would play football and basketball together, but as I got older I wanted to stay inside more and more.

Chris and I had a difficult relationship.  We were brothers, but we were very different people.  There was always the usual sibling rivalry present, exacerbated by my insane need to compete with everything he did (academically - I conceded sports as a whole to him).  He liked the Redskins; I liked the Cowboys.  He liked the Lakers; I liked the Hawks (TBS 17 Baby!).  He liked the Expos; I liked the Yankees.  The only sport entity we agreed on at ALL was the University of Georgia: I rooted for them throughout my childhood and he got his doctorate there. Yeah, all of that was there.  But there always seemed to be something more entrenched - something that neither of us had any control over.  We seemed to be pitted against each other by our parents.  My behavior was held up to Chris as how he should be acting.  His work ethic was held up to me to show me what level of effort I should give.  The struggles he went through in his life would be repeated to me to show me that I "had it easier" than he did.  My willingness to comply with requests (or my ability to be manipulated - still not sure on that) would be held up to Chris when he complained about doing things.  As a result, we both resented each other.  He hated that I was overweight.  I hated that he pointed it out all the time.

We didn't stay close.  We both tried at different times to rekindle a relationship, but it never lasted long.  There were things done and said that caused deep wounds.  He lived far away for many years, so visits were rare.  I kept myself distant from him for other years to try to protect myself and my family.  He battled his demons, especially alcohol.  And he lost more and more often.  And my heart broke over and over again.  This strong man.  This brilliant and strapping physical specimen who could not be defeated by anything.  He kept on losing. All we could do was to watch it happen, try to reach out, try to encourage him.

In July, I got a phone call from him while I was at a baseball game.  I couldn't answer because it was loud and it was 742 degrees and I was melting.  He called back twice and then we texted.  He wanted to come up to Columbia to see us.  He was planning on taking a vacation for the first time in decades and was thinking about going to North Carolina.  I told him the next weekend wouldn't work, but two weeks later would.  We texted about it a couple of times, and I asked him to not drink while he was at our house.  He said fine.  A week or so went by and I texted him again and asked if he was still coming up that weekend to see us.  "What is this weekend and why would I be coming to see you?"  I was kind of shocked, since we had just talked a few days before.  I didn't know at that point he was already in some serious trouble.  Within a couple of days he was in the hospital.  After a couple of weeks he was discharged to my Aunt and Uncle's care, but he was a poor facsimile of my brother.  He ended up back in the hospital pretty quickly and never left.

I tried to get down to see him, but it seemed like things were stacked against it.  School was starting, work was super busy, hurricanes were threatening to slam into the coast.  I would call and talk to  him when I could.  I left voice mails.  We would text each other - often via my Aunt's capable fingers instead of his failing ones.  And I planned to come the third week of September.  However, my sister Holly went down to see him and called me.  "You need to get down here now."  I saw him on FaceTime and was not prepared at all.  He was yellow and OOOOLD looking.  He wasn't really coherent at all.  When I hung up, I completely lost it.  I wailed and wailed.  This couldn't be real, but it was.  During the crying I was texting and emailing work, getting out of commitments and moving things around.  My in-laws headed to the house to stay with the kids.  Heather got out of work.  And we headed to West Palm Beach as fast as possible.  We ended up getting into town after midnight and went straight to the hospital.  They sent us up to the Hospice floor and the nurse met us at the door and said, "I'm so sorry."  I nodded and thanked her.  She said, "I just went in there and he is gone."  I was confused.  They moved him?  Why would they move him?  They didn't tell me that downstairs.  Heather, thankfully, was clear-minded and got clarification.  Then it hit me.  "Wait.  He's dead?"  The nurse nodded.  I walked to the door and looked in.

I missed him.  I didn't get to say goodbye.  I didn't get to hug him.  I was too late.  I should have left earlier.  I should have driven down during the hurricane earlier in the month.  Guilt and pain and grief just crushed me from every direction.  What was laying in that bed wasn't my brother.  It couldn't be.  I walked in and looked at him.  He looked like a horrible prop from a cheap movie.  He was yellow and waxy and cold.  Bloated with white hair and this weird mustache.  He hadn't had a mustache by itself since high school in the 1980s when people thought mustaches looked good.  He had a goatee for years.  He had been clean shaven for the last decade or two.  I collapsed into a chair and held his hand.  Then I laid across his chest and just cried and cried.  I told him I was sorry I didn't get there earlier.  And I tried to process what was going on.

Chris was gone.  My brilliant, gifted, athletic, strong brother.  The one I constantly pursued, the one I desperately needed approval from.  He was gone.  He had lived far away from me for over 30 years, so I was used to him not being around.  But he was gone.  How in the world? We were five years apart, and it felt like more than that most of the time.  But this was my brother.  I was so proud of all he had accomplished.  He had a doctorate in Bioinorganic Chemistry.  He worked for NASA's Astrobiology unit.  He worked on some iron-sulfur bond as part of his studies.  There were three components to it and he had divvied up the components with his collaborators.  He had the final component and finished his work first.  Then he went ahead and completed both of the other pieces also.  (I don't understand all of what that meant. Not a science person.)  He presented at an International Conference in Germany.  He was one of the most gifted artists I had ever seen.  There wasn't an art style he couldn't master.  Well, I don't know if he sculpted ever.  He would have been a great sculptor.  He was a true athlete - mastering any sport he played.  But at the most basic level, he was my brother... my first friend.

We shared a room for over 12 years, until he went away to college and basically stopped coming back very often.  We would mess around and irritate each other.  We would laugh at stupid stuff we said to each other.  We would not go to sleep after we were supposed to.  Even though we were so so different, we still were able to connect over silliness.  We could always get each other laughing.  I had this 8x10 picture of myself as a baby hanging on our wall.  (Hey, I was cute.  Don't judge me.)  We were siting in our room one day and he kept messing with the picture.  I said something about him pretending to pick my nose in the pic.  Then I said, "Ha.  You should put a booger on it."  SO HE DID!  He picked a booger and put it on baby David's upper lip.  "GET THAT OFF OF THERE!"  He cleaned it off, but it took some of the color with it.  Forever the picture was blemished with the reminder of that fateful day.

Chris used to listen to music Holly and I couldn't listen to due to our ages.  He was always worried I would tattle on him if I heard him singing some song that he was singing that wasn't appropriate.  I have no idea where he got this idea.  I wasn't a tattle-tale.  (Looking around for the lightning bolt.)  So he used to change the lyrics to try to convince me that I wasn't hearing what I was really hearing.  So, Dire Straits were bemoaning that singers would get "their money for nothing, and their checks for free" - not chicks.  The Police's Roxanne was not about a prostitute.  Rather it was about a street.  "Roxanne Street.  You don't have to put on the red light."  (You could wonder why I knew what a red light stood for when I was that young, and how my mom felt that was okay.  We had a house down the next block over that had a red light in the carport.  My dad made a comment, my mom explained, elementary aged kid now knew about red light districts.)  Panama by Van Halen, which is LOADED with double entendre, was merely about a guy driving around and nothing more.  The best music interaction came one morning when he was walking around singing and getting ready.  "WHOA.  She's beautiful!" It wasn't time for me to be awake for school yet, but I was usually awakened by his singing anyway.  This time I called out in my most lady-like voice, "Thaaaaa-aaaanks."  He stopped walking and said, "Uh ...  you're welcome?"  Then he tried to figure out who said it.  "Holly?  Holly?  Did you say that?"  He went into her room and WOKE HER UP (this was getting better and better) and asked again.  She, of course, denied it because she had no idea what was going on.  I couldn't hold it in any more and busted out laughing.  He came in our room.  "That was YOU?"  I think he hit me with a pillow.

What made me finally get around to sharing?  It is the holidays and Chris' death interacted with a sad tradition I have.  The year my dad died, my mom gave me a red ornament with gold printing on it of a postal stamp that had a deer on it.  It was sold as a tie in with the Christmas stamps from 1999.  My dad had been a postal worker for most of his adult life.  That was the only job I knew him doing, despite him having many many others when he was younger.  So I started hanging the ornament on the tree.  As the kids grew up and started doing more with the ornaments, they would never hang that one.  That was mine to put up.  It usually led to reminiscing and sharing about Dad, who none of them had ever met (even Heather).  The ornament fell and broke a few years back, but I found a replacement on eBay and it slipped right into the role.  The year my mom died, I tried to find an ornament that could serve as her memorial on the tree.  I saw one at Hallmark, but it had sold out when I went to get it.  So I took one of her bottle glass suncatchers with a grapes on it and hung it next to my dad's ornament.  This year, I needed to now find one for Chris.  I looked at surfer ones and fisherman ones.  But none of those felt right.  In my darker moments, I thought about buying an alcohol bottle to put up there - they even had them at Belk.  But, as my counselor said, that would be funny for one year and then be painful.  One day in the car, my brilliant insightful daughter said, "You should get a Swiss Cake Roll."  I looked at her and said, "Nailed it."

My brother, like most teenagers, didn't like doing things that my mom asked him to do.  The one exception was running to the grocery store. I was a dorky kid and actually liked going to the grocery store.  I went just about every Saturday morning with my mom until I went to college.  I also was an annoying punk little kid and wanted to go hang out with Chris in the car.  Finally my mom told him  he had to take me.  We drove to Publix and went inside.  We were walking around and grabbing the things on the list.  Then he said, "And a box of Swiss Cake Rolls."  I had a sneaky suspicion that wasn't right.  "Is that on the list?!?"  "No."  "Then what are you doing?"  He stopped and huffed.  "Every time mom tells me to go to the store, I buy a box of Swiss Cake Rolls as well."  I stared at him flabbergasted.  "What does she say?"  "She doesn't know."  "What about the receipt?"  "It doesn't list items, just prices."  "How do you get them in the house?"  "I eat them in the car."  "She would see the box and wrappers."  "I throw them away in the outside garbage on the way in the house."  I was completely baffled.  What deception!  What brilliance!  He then said, "You can have some of them if you don't say anything."  Deal.  So we ate a box of Swiss Cake Rolls on the way home and threw the trash away in the outside can.  And we repeated this many times afterwards.  And when I became the one to run to the store?  I did the exact same thing.  Even when I was in college, I would find myself buying a box of Swiss Cake Rolls at the store.  I cannot even see the product any more without thinking of Chris.  So it was a PERFECT ornament.

Christmas is one of those days that is so filled with emotion on its own.  It becomes so much more on the first year after you lose someone or on an anniversary of the loss.  This year will definitely bring thoughts of Chris.  My sister and her son are coming to spend Christmas with us - the remaining two from our family.  I have lots of fond memories of Chris on this holiday.  For years, he would get a Whitman's Sampler as a present.  Sometimes he would let us have the pieces he didn't like.  For a couple of years, my mom would give him a box of Frosted Wheat.  We weren't allowed to eat sugary cereal (only to dump a spoonful of sugar into our non-sweetened varieties).  Chris loved the frosted version of the horrible haybale Shredded Wheat.  This was back before mini-wheats were a thing.  Once a year she would give him a box of the frosted treasures.  One year we all swapped names betwixt us and had $100 to spend, but we had to get something out of four categories: something to wear, something to eat, something to play, and something from a hobby.  I had Chris' name.  He had owned a dive watch for a long time and really loved it.  It had been beat up and had the strap changed several times - once from laying on top of a lit kerosene heater.  But it had finally given up the ghost.  So I planned to get him a new watch.  I had to be super creative.  So I got him a springform pan for making cheesecakes, a box of cheesecake mix (which I don't think he ever lowered himself to use), and a bar of surfboard wax.  The rest I spent on a new dive watch.  It wasn't exactly what he had, but he wore it for decades.

I miss my brother.  Sweep away all the anger and confusion and hurt and sadness.  I miss him.  I've missed him for a long time, but now I know it is a permanent loss.  I'm glad that I have memories of him.  Some are physical, like his paintings and fishing poles and surfboard.  Some are mental, like Swiss Cake Rolls and his brilliant mind and his constant singing.  Every time I pass the Little Debbie end cap.  Every time my kid leaves an empty cup in the living room.  Every time I put a booger on a baby picture.  Every time I hear someone talking about bioinorganic chemistry.  Every time I see a surfboard.  Every time I pass my Christmas tree.



NOTE: This isn't to be cheesy and schmaltzy.  Take time this holiday to hold those you love a little closer.  You really don't know what tomorrow holds. Last Christmas, I had no indication that Chris wouldn't be here this holiday.  And if someone in your world is struggling with substance abuse, depression, loneliness - PLEASE don't blow it off.  You may be the voice that they are relying on to keep going.