football

**Escape from the oligarchy – paddle faster!**

I knew Monday was going to be a historically shitty day. I mean, come on, how often is a convicted felon inaugurated as president of the United States? Note: That will be a future Jeopardy question years from now. Anyway, I knew I had to be proactive in my approach to surviving the coronation of Donald Trump, so I did what any reasonable radical left lunatic would do – I got the hell out of town. Yep, strategery as W would say.

My dear wife and I and two of our besties, Lori and Sue, loaded up the SUV and headed for Augusta, GA. Hold on, I know you’re judging our destination. We wanted somewhere that wasn’t that far of a drive (3:45) and a location that was further south so weather would less likely be an issue. We booked a pretty Airbnb apartment in a renovated house built in 1860 and conveniently located near downtown.

**Just some Dixie chicks still not ready to make nice. (Sue, me, Joy, and Lori)**

I’m sure Augusta feels different in April when The Masters golf tournament is in town and the azaleas are in bloom and well, there are people everywhere. In the bleak midwinter, Augusta made Winston Salem look like Manhattan. Not a lot was going on over MLK weekend and that was just fine for us. We strolled the Riverwalk along the Savannah River and had two of the best dinners out I’ve had in a long time. And we went to the Morris Museum of Art and heard live music and toured their current collection. And the best part? I didn’t think of Donald Trump once. Mission accomplished.

**Sometimes you just need a walk along a river.**

Actually, that’s not entirely true. My friend Ed lives in Crozet, VA and grew up in Augusta. His wife Chris saw a Facebook post I had made and knew that I was in Ed’s old stomping ground. She texted me the address of Ed’s childhood home and on Saturday afternoon we did a little drive by. I thought it would be cute to take a funny selfie in front of Ed’s house and send it to him. Augusta suffered a lot of damage during Helene and I was afraid the old home place might look really bad. Turns out, it was worse than I could have imagined.

**Sorry, Ed – you really can’t go home again.**

Sunday night, we made pizza and watched football. [Insert lesbian jokes.] And I saw that I had an in-box message from my old pal Kerrie in Greensboro. We aren’t close friends, but I’m always delighted when I run into him. He has a wicked smart political mind and we always seem to get each other. He said that he would be thinking about me on Monday and gave me a humorous pep talk about all the work we have in front of us. He told me that it was going to be a rough few years, but “one day I will wake up to the good news that he is dead, and I’m not and on that day, there will be much rejoicing.” That’s Kerrie and I was so touched that he reached out.

I woke up Monday morning with an undeniable feeling of dread, but before I could go down the rabbit hole of despair, I got a text from my good friend Sue in St. Paul. Sue is 82 and moved to a retirement home in MN a few years ago to be near family. She had a stroke a handful of years ago – not that you’d ever know it – and we have had a daily wellness check-in since then. She texts me when she gets up – which is almost the same time as me, even with the hour time difference. There have been plenty of days, especially during this election year, that I’m pretty sure she was checking in on me. Either way, it’s a lovely way to start one’s day.

**Sue always has my back and she always has a plan. And that plan has a to do list.**

Sue told me that she had invited some of her like-minded friends to join her at 10:30 AM to walk 2,029 steps in their high-rise building. Why that number? That represents the year that Trump will (maybe) no longer be president. Folks on walkers and wheelchairs were included and everyone was invited to “walk” as little or much as they wished. They planned to walk the four floors, climbing the stairs or taking the elevator as they got their steps in.

Sue’s Senior March in her retirement home sounds like a great plot for a Netflix movie and my dread disappeared for a few hours. I hope when I’m Sue’s age, I can be a wise owl, too.

I looked at social media a bit on the drive home – no, I wasn’t driving – and saw Melania’s hat and Hillary laughing about the Gulf of America. I couldn’t look at any photos of Kamala because I knew I would cry – well, cry some more. There have been a lot of tears this month.

**Honestly, good on her – I wouldn’t want to have to kiss him either.**

Our drive home was filled with laughter, 70s music, and M&Ms – girls gotta do what they gotta do. And I saw that I had an in-box condolence message from Walter, my emotional support Canadian that I met on our trip to Spain and Portugal in 2019. Sometimes I think Walter knows more about US politics than I do and I always appreciate his insights and sense of humor – like when he refers to Canada as “not the 51^st state.”

Lori and Sue dropped us off in front of our condo and I noticed that my neighbor had finally taken down her Trump yard sign. For a millisecond, I was happy. And then I saw that she had put up a huge Trump flag on the side of her condo – featuring a picture of Trump with some idiotic saying like “We took back our country.” But wait, that’s not all. She also put up one of those garden flags that says God Guns & Trump. Bloody hell! I could feel my face turning red and I was consumed by anger. I can try to not look at Trump for four years, but I can’t not look out my front door.

My wife pulled me inside and I’m fairly certain she was wondering how she could live with me for the next four years. I’m sure she’s open to suggestions. Fostering might be on the table.

That evening we drank wine and avoided the television like it was radioactive. I thought I would stay up and watch the College Football National Championship game, but I just didn’t have the heart or energy for it. So, I dragged myself to bed and was scrolling through my phone and saw that I had an Instagram message from the daughter of one of my best friends from 4^th grade. She has two young daughters and lives in VA. She sent a photo of one of her girls watching Kamala be sworn in as vice president four years ago. Her message had no words – just the broken heart emoji.

**I have to believe that she’ll see a woman sworn in as president one day.**

Even though her message gutted me, it also gave me some embers of hope and comfort. This is how we will get through these next four years – by checking in with each other and lifting each other up when we’re down. Yes, there will be a shit ton of hard work, too, but I hear from a reliable source that hard work is good work.

And when we fight, well, we’re bound to win again one of these days.

Keep fighting, friends. I love us.

**Stay focused on what’s most important to you these next four years. (Carbs highly recommended.)**

My father, bathed in sunshine.

I’ve been thinking about Mother’s Day a lot lately. I know most folks are thinking about that this week, too, but I’m thinking about a particular Mother’s Day, 14 years ago, when a doctor told me that my father was dying of leukemia.

I just felt a collective eye-roll as you read that last sentence. Stay with me, I promise this post will not be bleak in spite of its ominous beginning. You see, anything I write about my father will inevitably be joyful because he was the most optimistic person ever put on the face of this earth.

Seriously, he made Mr. Rogers look like Debbie Downer.

Don’t get me wrong – his optimism, especially when I was a sullen teenager, could make me want to smother him with a pillow. But these days I’m grateful for his hopeful spirit because it has certainly helped to sustain me in some hard times over the many years since his death in May of 2002.

My dad was THE eternal optimist.

My father and I didn’t have a traditional father-daughter relationship. I was never his princess and I didn’t grow up dreaming about him walking me down the aisle when I got married.

And yet he taught me some things every girl should know – how to shoot a jumper, how to crack crabs and how a roll of duct tape can fix just about anything, including the zipper on your yard-work pants.

Me and my Dad cracking crabs on the Chesapeake Bay. I think my doll passed out.

We didn’t bond over tea parties in my playhouse or matinees at the ballet. Instead, we spent hours on the basketball court behind our house playing HORSE. Dad loved the Los Angeles Lakers and he would emulate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s famous sky hook. He always did it with color commentary, too, and he could be pretty annoying.

So it was most gratifying when I was finally able to beat him once in a while, usually with an unorthodox backwards over the head shot that was awkward for his 6’ 4” frame.

My dad loved being tall and regarded it almost as a sign of social superiority. Ironically, he grew up on a farm with horses and dreamed of being a jockey one day. Yeah, that didn’t quite work out. He never got to meet my wife but I know he would be pleased that she is 5’10”.

Our most intimate time together growing up was on Sunday afternoons watching the Washington Redskins get pummeled by their opponents. Dad really enjoyed teaching me about football – the rules and strategy and most of all, predicting which play would be called next. That’s why I am often the only woman in a room who knows what a flea flicker is. And for the football uneducated, that is not a special dog collar.

Quarterback Sonny Jurgensen was the object of my dad and mine’s affection for much of my childhood.

I loved having his uninterrupted attention for three hours and I never thought I was weird because none of my girlfriends spent their Sundays in this way. I didn’t realize for a very long time that my father was teaching me about a lot more than football on those afternoons.

Dad was a fierce competitor whether watching or playing anything. He would stand up and cheer when the Redskins scored and he would stomp his foot and cuss a little when they made a bonehead play to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory late in a game.

He taught me a lot about loyalty. Win or lose, he still loved the Redskins and after every loss would say, “We’ll get ‘em next week, Adda.” Usually we would lose the next week, too, but his enthusiasm and support for his team never wavered. He was like that with his family and friends, too – fiercely faithful.

My father, like a lot of men from his generation, had a collection of sayings that he used over and over again. His most memorable one was, “Only cry in victory, never in defeat” and it was years before I understood that he was talking about life.

And that’s exactly how he approached some huge challenges thrown at him, including losing his larynx to cancer in his early sixties and becoming disabled the last several years of his life. The once strong and cocky athlete had to use a walker to get around and could no longer drive or play his beloved golf.

And yet he never complained about it – any of it. He would certainly get frustrated at times but would always remind himself and us that, “It could be worse.” We would tease him that we would put that epitaph on his headstone one day.

My father had a quiet but indomitable faith. He grew up poor and never took anything for granted. He loved and respected nature and was happiest being drenched in sweat after working in his garden all day. And he was almost always happy.

When I was younger, I thought he was a simple man – certainly not stupid but limited in his vision of the world around him. I had to go through some difficult challenges of my own to understand that he chose to focus on what was most important to him in life and let the rest of it go. I honestly don’t think he wasted much time worrying about what he didn’t have.

He chose optimism over cynicism, sweet over bitter, and those choices have consciously and unconsciously informed many of my own choices since his death.

Sometimes it feels like he’s still sitting there beside me on the couch lifting my spirits after another disappointment. I thought about him a lot when I lost my job in January. I know his first reaction would have been to want to punch out the noxious manipulator that staged my demise but then he would have said, “Keep your chin up” and told me to remember all the good things in my life.

Oh, and then he would have told me to check my oil. He always told me to check my oil.

Damn his optimism. I can’t shake it and that’s why when a doctor told me my father was dying on that Mother’s Day so long ago, I did not cry in defeat. I knew he had lived a life far beyond his dreams, a happy life that even death could not diminish.

I cried in victory because on my very best days, I am my father’s daughter.

Howard Brown Ore, a happy man.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.

Calling for backup

The most happy fella