Why Wondrous Swish?

Pressed to make a collage defining “me,” a school-aged me cut pieces from an awesome photo essay printed in a 1972 issue of Sports Illustrated. The prose that accompanied the images imprinted in my mind as deeply as any lines of poetry learned in my English classes.

“It is enough to gaze on the wondrous sight of a swish, or to dribble down a sidewalk . . . or just to rest after some two-on-two. . . . just lunging for a loose ball can be a marvelous act of desire, done over fallen leaves or on a court cleared of snow or in the summer when the city sizzles. A fast break is a boy's passion, and it is his training for the years ahead.”

Every time I am around my brothers and nephews, we are either playing in or planning the next pickup game. And while I didn’t play high school ball, I have always loved the game. Three times a week, I go down to BYU’s Smith Fieldhouse, lace up some Jordans, and shoot some hoops with accountants, teachers, and other BYU professionals. It keeps me sane. And it’s way cheaper than therapy, even after you figure in the cost of nice kicks. I am a happier human when I can play.

And once upon a time, I even got to justify those hours by writing about it for the magazine. Here’s the link if you’re interested.

LINK

Come to Provo anytime. We’ll work you into the game.

TANGENT 1: Hummingbirds also make a wondrous swish as they swoop and whir around our front yard.

TANGENT 2: A wondrous swish and a wondrous wish are two different things, just barely.

No Kicking the Bucket

So I pulled into Will’s Pit Stop, a local convenience store, to get a refill in my 64 oz. insulated container that I’ve had forever. It’s so old . . . the store in Provo where I bought it (Harts) has been out of business for more than a decade. I still use it because it is large and keeps drinks cold all day long. The handle broke a while back but I put it back together with some black tape.

Anyway, I am filling my jug and a handsome Hispanic guy in his 20s looks over and, in a thick Mexican accent, says, “Hey, how much do you pay for that thing?” I explain that it ranges from 80 cents to $1.15. “He looks at me, then once again at the size of my refill, and says, “Oh, man. I gotta get me one of those buckets.”

TANGENT 1: When I proposed to my wife one fateful Christmas Day, she was expecting a ring when she opened the black velvet box, not a stack of refill coupons from Harts. Then again, I also did not expect to have to retreat so quickly to the closet where I had hidden the actual engagement ring.

TANGENT 2: During my high school years we did not have a basketball standard at our house as it was built on a hill and what little level ground we had was either grass or a terraced strawberry patch. In one little section of driveway, however, I mounted a bucket with the bottom cut out so I could practice my jumpshots and “dunks” with a tennis ball.

TANGENT 3: Our family has a variety of interesting nicknames. One brother whom I greatly admire is called Bucket. One of his boyhood friends just started calling him that and it stuck. In a later post I will share what I know about Speckle-Nosed Trout, Dusty Dan, Wiener, and my own legacy with nicknames.

Not in the Face

The sides of my nose still hurt a little from last night but I think I’ll live. Last night, we worked on emptying the tall teen packrat’s bedroom of three years of detritus so we can do some drywall, carpet, and painting. To blow off some steam, the boys and I started throwing an undersized small, semi-flat kids soccer ball down the hall at each other. The goal was to throw it as hard as you could and hit somebody somewhere where it wouldn’t hurt enough to have to stop playing the game. The taller boy caught it in the kidneys, the younger, on his right ear. I avoided injury until the very end, when I thought the game was actually over. We were resting, sitting peacefully on the couch. Only a few feet away, the younger son had the ball, so I put my hands up and said, “Throw it soft.” Instead he threw it hard, right at my face, knocking my glasses into my nose and then off altogether. I guess I was asking for it.


TANGENT 1: As a kid we used to play a lot of catch, mostly with a real football or a frisbee, then we got our hands on a Nerf. Sometimes we played catch indoors, a little too close to Mom’s fancy antique organ lamp. The danger of it made us really focus and use sure hands.

TANGENT 2: The Tick (an awesome cartoon with many, many puns) was a superhero with the battle cry "Not in the face . . . not in the face!" which was later replaced with "Spoon!"

TANGENT 3: I enjoyed more football success in the backyard than I ever did playing high school football. But that's a story for a different day.

Bonus Moms

My brother just put up a blog post about mothers and sons (. . . hey, not yet, read this first.) It got me thinking a lot about the most important women in my life. I have a lot of sisters, five, to be precise, and each of them has four brothers. And then there’s my wife (a longer story for another post). So the challenge here will be to keep it short (not gonna happen).

This past summer my little mom turned 80. This is hard to believe because she is truly still a kid at heart, full of wonder and unconditional love. We had a party up at Alturas Lake, a tree-lined mountain lake—our family’s traditional vacation spot. We had all gathered in Smokey Lodge to celebrate with our mom. She stood up and thanked everyone for being there, despite the miles. My sister Loralyn responded, “Thanks for having us.” (Pun intended—it was, after all, a gathering of Walker children.)

Some had written some thoughts down and we had some of the younger kids read them. My sister Jeanie, 2.5 years my senior, shared this memory.

“I remember: In the house on Harrison, Mom wrapping us in towels after our bath and laying us on the carpet in the sun, very womb-like.”

I instantly realized I was one of the “us.” This gift of a forgotten memory—the clean, warm, bright, terry-cloth wrapped feeling—was sweet, vivid, and unexpectedly deep. And it preempted my current earliest memory—riding a red tricycle on the sidewalk in front of our Boise home.

I couldn’t say Lissa when I was little so I called her Mama Si-si. She was 6th and I was 9th so she was the perfect age to watch over me. This past weekend she fell off some stairs and hurt her elbow and foot. As we helped her, I began to comprehend her level of caring for me when I was small and now that I’m, well, big.

All of my sisters are warm and caring, having inherited these and other great traits from Mom. Our dad had his strengths but if you wanted a long, compassionate listen, you would go see mom. I am so grateful for these women who have watched over me. I could write a lot about each of my sisters, and I will. But, in the spirit of keeping these to a readable length, I’ll stop for now.

Make It Fun

Piano music, played by a thirteen-year-old, fills our recently remodeled great room. The notes echo into every corner of the house; if you're inside, you can't escape it, not even with headphones, trust me. The piano is such a pleasant respite from the clarinet. I enjoy when that instrument is left at school, as does our enormous gray cat who, from given her violent reaction to clarinet sounds, seems able to hear frequencies above and beyond that of humans.

I had my two weeks of lessons, like everybody else, but I did not have the patience nor the natural skill that my boy has. He has progressed to a point that I enjoy his practicing. I marvel at the beautiful sounds he has worked hard to produce from a hand-me-down piano that a school donated to the local thrift store and we picked up for a song.

My son’s piano teacher is a saint. Just at the point that I’m ready to rain down some hurt because he is hamming it up, dancing in place, being, in my opinion, a little too “creative” in his lesson, she encourages him by hooking him up to a microphone and grabbing her videocamera to amplify then capture his antics for eternity. His latest composition is called “Happyland Gets Destroyed.” In spite of this silliness, he is also about to do his first solo recital. I think we can all use her advice—to take our creative, spontaneous moments and apply that same feeling to everything we do in life

TANGENT 1: I used to hang out with a girl in high school just so I could sit in her living room and listen to her play the piano. I broke up with a different girl once because she liked the wrong version of a song on the radio.

TANGENT 2: Sophomore through senior years of high school, I acted in Oklahoma, Sound of Music, and played Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls.

TANGENT 3: I enjoyed more success on stage than I ever did on the football field. But that's a story for a different day.

The Last Cookie

To start the week off right, one of my coworkers cooks up a batch of cookies from a book of award-winning recipes. These treats are presented in an aesthetically pleasing stack on a golden plate in our editors staff meeting, then the remains are put out on a counter in the reception area for others to enjoy. Often, the pile is reduced to one cookie by early afternoon. The last cookie. It sits on the plate longer than any other. It seems no one wants to take it. It is like the awkward, pudgy kid, picked last for a playground game at recess. When I discover its sad condition, I quickly snatch it up. It can play on my team.

TANGENT 1: I am the last of nine children. C is for Cookie. That's good enough for me.

TANGENT 2: In my opinion, cake < cookie < scone < pie < any dessert with huckleberries.

TANGENT 3: Like my father before me, I like my pie in round pieces, hot or cold.

Typo Blood and Work Gloves

I gave blood a while back. I think that was the first time I had ever given up blood in a Red Cross blood drive. I have had blood taken for a marriage license and for testing, but I had never given without a compelling reason and never in volume. I think it was because I edited an article called, “Why Giving Matters” for the magazine. It basically says that the act of giving—of serving others—yields great returns, financially, but more importantly, in levels of happiness. People who give are happier.

I know a guy who really serves others and it makes him happy, so this concept makes sense to me. He helped us remodel our house without pay (will work for baked goods) and does similar acts of service for others in need. He also gives blood regularly. Because of him and others with helping hearts, I started carrying a pair of work gloves in my car, just in case I need to stop and help. I've only used them spontaneously once but they remind me that I should be more focused on helping others.

TANGENT 1: My father's granddad was named Daniel Blood Wilson. When my sons learned of this, they wondered if he was a vampire.

TANGENT 2: In this process I was also reminded that I have Type O blood. This amused me because I'm pretty good at proofreading (but I think they misspelled it—I've adjusted that in my title).

TANGENT 3: Our intramural basketball team is named Full Bleed. I've inserted the logo here. I love the crossed X-Acto blades.

Truppa Gonfiata

My bro-in-law—and silliest friend—and I marveled at details offered by the narrator of a WWII documentary on television. In his finest British accent, he summed up an epic sortie by the Italian Air Force this way: “And when the pilots looked around, they noticed that, overnight, their ranks had swollen considerably.”

“Swollen ranks are typical,” I added, “when you sit in a cockpit for too long.” For many joyful, awful moments we jibed and punned, eyes streaming tears and stomachs tight, then painful. In that spirit, this blog will try to capture moments that evoke such emotion—stemming from the laughter, trauma, and beauty of each day on planet earth. (Don’t despair, you will also get some puns and tangential stuff as well.)