STEVE

The recent passing of Steve Jobs bothered me more than the loss of any public figure in quite some time.  The outpouring of affection world wide left little doubt there were millions who felt the same way.  Why was his loss so moving?  I can only speak for myself but I feel quite sure there are many common threads among all of us who admired him.

I am sure I am not the only one who noted the irony of his passing coming at a time when there were protests in many major cities against, I’m not sure what, but seemingly targeting the evil “CORPORATIONS”.  There is no doubt that some small part of Steve’s being had a commonality with those in the streets but by the time you mixed in the rest of him you ended up with a different animal. 

To me he personified why it is critical to keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive in our country.  Why we can’t give in to the encouragement of mediocrity to the point where excelling is resented.  Steve and his partner started with an idea and little money.  Many, many others have started with an idea and little money.  Some make it and some don’t.  But I doubt if there is any single factor more important to our standing in the world today than the concept of having a CHANCE to reap the rewards that can come from hard work and the courage to take a risk. 

Steve certainly took risks.  Not all projects were winners.  He left his company for a spell and then returned to lead Apple to new heights.  He made a huge leap of faith in purchasing Pixar from which Toy Story and other high quality animated films changed the movie going habits of a generation of kids and their parents.  He fought a very public battle with cancer.  In the pursuit of his dreams he was very charitable and provided jobs for thousands of people. 

As the face of Apple we watched and admired as he launched product after product.  An entire generation of techies took his sense of low fashion to heart.  The faded levis, spectacles and black, mock turtle neck sweater he wore to introduce one razor thin, world changing gizmo after another, became Silicon Valley chic.  Board rooms and stock holders meetings looked like a gathering of skate boarders. 

His funky, against the grain, non-establishment computer appealed to the rebel in everyone.  The bite-out-of-the-apple logo a symbol of freedom of expression.  The i this and the i that changed the way music was played and people communicated and a visit to an Apple store became more energizing than a 5 hour energy drink. 

We should hope that our country NEVER loses whatever magic it has that encourages those from within as well as those who have immigrated here to give it their best shot.  All Steve asked for was the opportunity.  I never met the man but I feel like he was a friend.  I only wish we could have sat down for a cup of coffee.             

I AM A FAN

                                                                                      

I love football.  I loved playing it, I love watching it and the guys that play the game are my kind of guys.  It is my favorite sport.  But I like all sports.  I am a little slow coming around to curling, synchronized swimming and that sport where gymnasts twirl around a stick with a scarf attached to it, but even those have their appeal.  The reason they do is they have fans.

Fans can be anywhere from a lone parent watching a loved one compete on a cold, drizzly day, to a face painted maniac, dressed like a circus clown, and everywhere in between.  They can be encouraging or showing support for an individual or team at the local park or they can be full-on, early arriving tailgaters that stay well after the final lights are out.  They can also be sharing pizza, gathered around a friends TV set.  And like me, quite often, alone in front of my TV just as excited as if I was there.  

The point is they are in the game.  For a few moments they remove themselves from their everyday life long enough to lose it for a while.  During that time all that is important is enjoying a competitive event and whether your team wins or loses.  Everything else is out there somewhere but lost for the time being. 

I love it when I am watching a game and the camera settles on a group of fans who must have spent more time on make-up than the cast of the Wizard of Oz.  Yelling, screaming and carrying on.  If their family is watching I am sure they would deny knowing them.  How cool that people can let it all hang out for few hours.  It even spills over to water cooler talk about the great play made to save the day or the official’s horrendous call to cost your team. 

Granted there are those who cross the line into rather deviant behavior.  The soccer beer hooligans come to mind.  Mob behavior and destruction are their calling card if their team should lose.  To say alcohol may have been involved is a laughable understatement.  Death threats and worse dot the history of the sport as do payoffs and bribes. 

The passion inherent to any sport is subject to the same extremes as politics or religion.  The difference is the core of sports is a game.  Bruised feelings aside the worse that can happen is your teams wins or loses.  Nothing earth shattering.  This from a guy who wants to lock himself in a closet when his team loses.  But I do recover quickly and am there cheering loudly at the next game.  That’s the beauty of being a fan.

Fandom is the best therapy known to man or woman.  I am not a scientist or psychologist but I would venture to say NASCAR fans, tailgaters, fans of major sports such as hockey, basketball, baseball, football, soccer and all the other sports of any kind, come Monday morning are among the more balanced, stress relieved people on earth.  It’s all good.   

PEOPLE CAN BE CRUEL

There was an article in yesterday’s L.A. Times Magazine about a deaf football player.  I found it of great interest because he went to a local high school and is now a star player for UCLA and because I am also deaf.  His deafness was described as hearing virtually no sounds without the use of hearing aids, which describes mine as well.
 
While he has reached great success as an athlete it was his story of growing up that brought back many memories.  Specifically, the treatment he received from others.  He refers to kids calling him stupid and making fun of those things in his ears.  I remember well those kinds of comments and many more including “you talk funny”. 

While the experiences of Derrick Coleman and mine were very similar there was one difference.  He put on a pair of pantyhose over his hearing aids to protect them and hold them in place.  Being a bit older than Derrick the hearing aids I wore as a kid were held in the chest pocket of my shirt with cords running up to my ear pieces.  Thus when I played football I could not wear my hearing aids.  I had to rely 100% on lip reading.

Due to shyness at being seen with these hearing aids on and being very active in sports I often did not wear them at all.  As a result, as Derrick talks about, you do not enjoy being around people and become very quiet. 

The memory that came most to mind after reading the article was a painful one.  Our city had a very competitive flag football league.  I was the quarterback of the team and we had managed to win our league and advance to the championship game.  A few days before the big game the coach called me aside and said he was removing me from the team.  He explained to me that the other kids felt I was removed from them and aloof. 

I was crushed.  I cried as I told my Dad that night what had happened.  It still hurts today as much as it did then.  My Dad insisted that I be the bigger man and be on the sidelines to cheer my team on during the game, which I did.

I tell this story because it is good to be reminded that there are quite often very good reasons why people behave the way they do.  It behooves each of us to be understanding and compassionate.  While we are most certainly entitled to our own thoughts regarding others, I can’t think of many circumstances when making hurtful comments is justified.

In my own case if I was given a do-over I would not change anything.  God compensated me in so many ways I feel guilty.     

COLLEGE

I have always had reservations about our current college entrance requirements.  Partly because I know if I had to meet today’s requirements I would be up the proverbial creek but I also feel there is a grave injustice being done to a great many people. 

Maybe there are colleges somewhere that you can get into with a C average but I don’t know of any.  There are not too many where a B average will open the doors.  Most are requiring a 4.0 or better average.  The better comes from advanced level curriculums that pile points on top of the 4.0.  As if that average is not good enough the entrants are weighed against each other based on extracurricular activities.  If you were a member of the debate team, student council, cheer squad or volunteered to help the poor, your chances are greatly enhanced. 

All of this is fine and dandy but who is to say these people deserve a college education any more than any other student who displays the ability to do college level work.  I can understand businesses, law firms and others looking for the best and the brightest but there are some very talented people out there who may not have mastered the art of preparing for an exam but, given a college education, will do just fine thank you when it comes to competing in the real world.

The classes for the first two years of college are, for the most part, quite similar for everyone.  They are designed to give students a well rounded education in subjects that are basically an extension of their high school college prep classes.  EVERYONE that is capable of college level work should be entitled to this education.  It is in the last two years that the student takes classes that are specific to the major chosen.  Be it pre-law, pre-med or engineering these are the years a student zero’s in on their chosen field.

Depending on the field, there is most certainly a relationship between excellence achieved in the class room and the real world.  If I am lying on the operating table facing life saving surgery you can bet your bottom dollar I want a surgeon with a 4.infinity working on me.  But there are just as many careers in art, advertising, restaurants, computers and others where creativity and hard work will win hands down over a gifted student nine ways from Sunday. 

Private enterprise is loaded with C students and college drop outs.  Most leaders have a natural ability to get along with people and get the most out of them.  These things cannot be taught in the class room.  Picasso was destined for greatness no matter what.  So was Mark Twain. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying a college degree is not a worthy goal, I am saying because it is we have to figure out a way to spread entrance acceptance around evenly to those qualified. 

WAVES

As I do every morning, I was enjoying a hot cup of Donut House coffee while browsing through the Daily Pilot, our local newspaper.  Given that our town is located around a beautiful harbor and has miles of beaches, there is much coverage of salt water related happenings, which is of interest to  sailors, fishermen, surfers, beachgoers and others.  This particular morning the Daily Pilot was reporting a storm In New Zealand was sending huge waves our way. 

A quick check with Google tells me New Zealand is 6,882 miles by sea from Southern California.  
Visualizing throwing a pebble in a lake and watching the ripples pulse off toward the other side I tried to imagine a wave rolling across the Pacific Ocean and maintaining any size.  The pebble would have to be a rock the size of the moon.  But these waves were obviously not sent on their journey by a pebble but by a winter storm.  What kind of wrath had God unleashed in New Zealand that had the force to push water some 6,882 miles and still muster the strength to pulverize the distant shore?

I drove down to a bluff overlooking a spot along the beach we call The Wedge.  So named because waves marching from the south wedge themselves between a rock jetty and a sandy beach, creating a peak affect that can turn an already large wave into a snarling monster.  These waves usually arrive in sets of four with brief periods of relative calm between sets. 

From my perch on the bluff I could see these lines of waves approaching the beach.  I tried to imagine their journey.  I would guess the birthplace of the storm was on the Antarctic side of New Zealand.  Whatever stirred the pot there created such havoc that mountains of water said to themselves “I’m out’ a here” and headed north. 

Save for Tahiti, Hawaii and a smattering of other small islands, it was clear sailing for these waves all the way to California.  Mid ocean they represent little more than a gentle rise as they pass beneath fishing boats, sail boats, freighters and cruise ships.  With God given instincts ocean birds watch respectfully from high above as they glide by. 

As they move over the horizon and approach shore the lines become more definitive and as the water becomes shallower the ocean bottom begins to tug on the lower reaches of the wave.  This tugging causes the surface water to begin to move forward.  As the majestic wave reaches shore the surface water says “Thanks for the ride” and hurls itself forward. 

At the Wedge there is a squeezing of this water into such a small area that the only place for the additional tons of water to go is straight up.  What may have been a 10 to 12 foot wave on a normal sandy beach is suddenly jacked up to 20 feet plus.  As all this water catapults upward and then forward it creates this magnificent sight and sound only God can create.  I scream to myself “Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”!        

SUMMERS END

In tradidional terms Labor Day is the end of the summer season.  Don't go all scientific on me and tell me the autumnal equinox is September 23 and thus the end of summer and the beginning of fall.  If you are a kid growing up all you know is school starts just after Labor Day and that's it for summer.  End of story. 

God I hated going back to school.  I had not worn shoes for a couple of months, gone to bed late every night and slept till whenever, sand and the beach everyday and had this bronze tan look of a south sea islander and my hair had been bleached blond by the sun.  It would generally take me until Thanksgiving to quit pouting and get with the program.

There are only two good things about September.  One is it is the beginning of football season and the other is, if you live in southern California, it is the best fishing month of the year.  Football needs no explanation to any red blooded human being but fishing does.  Conditions are optimal for most offshore migratory game fish.  Ocean water temperatures are ideal, the weather is mild and boat traffic has dwindled considerably. 

Then there is Avalon.  This tiny little harbor and town on Catalina Island is a paradise.  Anchored in this beautiful harbor, some 26 miles from the mainland populated by millions of people, it is as if you are on a different planet.  To arrive here after a days fishing with your family, take a shore boat ashore for dinner, listen to a little music at one of the bars then fall asleep under the stars is the equivalent to getting the paddles to jump-start your heart.

So as much as I dread the arrival of Labor Day I must say I have had some of my most memorable family days in September.  Whether it is on the run home from the fishing grounds or returning from Avalon on a late Sunday afternoon, I have been reminded many, many times that it is not what you do it is who you do it with.  Then, as now, I would not trade places with anyone.          

ROLE MODELS

   
  Whether we like it or not if we are an adult we are a role model.  You cannot deny this fact if you watched the Little League World Series this past week.  Watching these mostly 12 year olds was like watching a major league game.  The skill level was obviously different but not much else. 

These kids had all the moves.  You could watch them in the batter’s box and tell who their favorite player is.  While waiting for a pitch some had a hitch in their swing, some held the bat out towards the pitcher; others crouched or pumped their elbow up and down and some stood with their forward foot way back in the batter’s box until the pitcher was well into his wind up before bringing his foot forward.  Any half baked baseball fan would recognize all these moves as the spitting image of many star major league players.  And speaking of spitting, most were spitting continually.  What they were spitting is beyond me because I did not see any chewing tobacco.  Thank God. 

Even in their interviews on TV the kids had all the jargon of grizzled veterans.  The boy who drove in the winning run speaking into the camera as millions watched explained “The ball felt good coming off the bat”.  What!!!  Tell me that is not something Gary Jeter would say, not some 12 year old kid. 

Further proof of the “role model” pudding was the personality of the two teams.  As you watched for a while you noticed all the players took on the persona of their respective coaches.  The Japanese coach was very outgoing, filled with laughter and always smiling.  Then you noticed all his players were laughing and smiling their way through the entire game.  They even smiled when they struck out. 

The American coach was much the opposite.  He was like maybe it wasn’t cool to smile.  He was very serious and showed little emotion.  Guess what, his players were all the same.  Although I must say they went bananas when the winning run crossed the plate.  In stark contrast to the losing Japanese team who, within seconds of the end of the game, lined up stoically at attention, facing the field, tears streaming down their faces.

My point is, if you are an adult and particularly if you are a parent, someone is watching.  They may just absorb your day to day conduct as a friend, boss or parent.  Or they may be on the receiving end of your lessons on how to live life.  In either case the old “Do as I say, not as I do”, finishes a distant second to teaching by example.  As is the case with the little league baseball players, what you do is “cool” to those you influence.  Live your life accordingly.