A Savior Awaits

 They are using all the superlatives today.  His performance was breathtaking.  You don't see this very often.  This could be the horse of a lifetime.  

After Flightline won the Malibu Stakes opening day at Santa Anita, the pundits and old-timers, the youthful and the addicted gamblers, the occasional fan, and the newbie were all stunned by his performance.   It wasn't merely good, it was off the charts.  This horse has the potential to be beyond something special.

The veterans of the sport, who have seen it all before,  know it's way too early to get this excited.  Still, given the current state of affairs in this difficult, if not miserable world today, the possibility is there.  It's a good thing that Flightline's trainer, John Sadler, has handled horses of this caliber before.  That helps because patience with a capital P is often the key.

These days, when I watch a horse race, it's at home and by myself.  I often talk to myself.  That comes from years of watching races with my friends, racetrack buddies, or in a pressed box when I worked as a turf writer.  Yesterday, as Flightline took the lead and stretched out displaying that extra gear that the great ones have, I muttered, "He looks like Seattle Slew out there."

This morning when I went to check his pedigree, Surprise! (actually no surprise) Slew is his great grandfather.  

Could this be the one?  Could we be in the presence of another Seattle Slew, or Secretariat, or perhaps Seabiscuit?  The latter made his presence felt in the depths of the Great Depression,  We certainly need this kind of equine savior now.  Maybe this is how it works.  

So, in this time of predictions for the new year, barring any injury or unforeseen circumstance, we are looking at the prohibitive favorite for the 2022 Kentucky Derby? No! In a few days he’ll be  4 year-old, so he’s too old for the Triple Crown.  Maybe Flightline can do some Public Service Announcements urging people to wear a mask and quit complaining.  Get vaccinated and tested and realize once and for all that we are in the big middle of a full-tilt pandemic.  

Maybe we will all have something to bring us together throughout the coming year.  Stranger things have happened.  All maybes aside, we are surely going to have something to look forward to in the coming months.  A Savior awaits.

Not Forgotten

 I knew the day would come.  But it conveniently was so easy to put off.  Yet, these days of pandemic boredom and too much time on my hands brought the inevitable forward.  I've got a job to do.  A very sensitive job, but one that very few care about.  Still, it's time.

I have a very small family.  I could probably fit everyone in my living room.  Just one cousin on my mother's side, a sister, and nobody on my father's side.  Most are gone, and within 20-25 years half of those left will be too.  

Yet their lives in photographs, ephemera, a few personal items, and miscellaneous objects remain.  To this, I can add my personal collection of journals, watercolor paintings, books, poems, photographs, memorabilia, and 30 years of classroom odds and ends from my teaching career.  

What to do with this stuff?  That is the question.  It wouldn't be such a big deal if only there were a few more relatives or my own children to pass it all on to.  Not so.  I have no qualms about getting rid of the stuff, it's just how?  That's what bothers me the most.

I've researched this conundrum.  People prefer fire.  There is something clean about burning things you want to leave no trace.  If some of these items are completely reduced to ashes then there is no chance of them falling into the wrong hands.  We owe that much respect to our ancestors.  We can protect some of our innermost thoughts from becoming public knowledge that way too.  

There is another side of the coin to this too.  Very talented artists sometimes like to make collages or displays of all sorts with these old photos and objects of decades past.  Some I have could actually go to museums because my folks were young and productive in the 1930s and 40s and I have a few items that came in handy for a history teacher discussing the Great Depression with kids who were often entranced with everything from kitchen items, ration books, and clothing from the 1940s.  Since they owned and operated a small-town general store, complete with a soda fountain for a while, I also have a few Coca-Cola artifacts like an ice pick and one of those coveted Coke trays.

I will move some items on by way of a garage sale or online marketplace.  Some will make someone happy and receive new life.  Others demand some sort of ceremony.  That I'm still figuring out.  Any ideas?

Another Love Story

 My reading this week has taken me from the frying pan into the fire.  I'd better be careful with these fiery metaphors because it's easy to be misunderstood or offend when writing about grisly topics such as the Holocaust or lynchings in America. Nevertheless, I'll proceed.  

Having just finished The Tattooist of Auschwitz,  I then picked up the new biography of Malcolm X called The Dead are Rising, by Les Payne and his daughter Tamara Payne. Both, in their own ways, are love stories, and that ironic twist makes them even more fascinating to contrast.  The latter is also another kind of love story in that Tamara Payne finished the book after the untimely death of her father, Les. For Les Payne, this book was a labor of love that saw him through to the end of his days.  He felt so strongly about filling in the gaps from various media distortions over the years, that the book is meticulously researched, hence his near 30 year stretch working on it.

If we look at the overarching themes in these works we see that people devise ways to feel good about themselves and thrive even in the midst of wickedly cruel environments.  For one it is the attraction to a beautiful inmate of Auschwitz that keeps his sanity and hope alive despite losing everything as a result of the attempt to erase him from time and memory.  The attraction to self-identity and one's own worth and abilities are what helped to motivate the young Malcolm Little in his quest to liberate both himself and his people.  

We live now in a time of malaise...when dark forces surround us and it is difficult not to fall into pessimism and depression.  These stories help us cope and inspire us with the reminder that the human mind can overcome even the deepest abyss.  They are also our stories because they belong to our shared experiences.  Who hasn't read of the oppressed without feeling a sense of oppression?  I think we both know who.

In this season of giving, these two volumes would make excellent gifts.  That is not my purpose here, but they both serve as reminders of the strength of the human will.  

Our society and culture seem paralyzed right now.  Perhaps that is what is necessary to re-examine our core values and find the common ground so strikingly absent from our national institutions right now.