1. My exclusive source for taking in sporting events is XM Radio. Today I listened to the third round of the U.S. Open golf championship and listened to the hobbled Tiger Woods eagle the 13th, birdie the 17th, and eagle the 18th brought me to my feet. Michael Collins, the reporter following Woods, came unglued for each of these stupendous moments and they played out beautifully in the golf theater of my mind. If Tiger Woods wins this tournament today with his knee sore and often buckling, it will rate close to Ken Venturi's victory in 1964 as he nearly crawled the course, severely dehydrated from the 100 degree heat. What makes Venturi's feat arguably the most courageous of all time is the fact that, at that time, the final day of the U.S. Open was a thirty-six hole grind.
2. God's Bits of Wood, a novel published in 1961 by Ousmane Sembène of Senegal, turned out to be the perfect way to finish my World Literature course. I read my students' papers, focused on how the Sudanese and Senegalese portrayed in this book had, in various ways, mentally and emotionally internalized the French who had colonized and occupied their country. It's what happens, no matter the effort to resist a occupier: people begin to become the very people they want to leave their country.
3. I'm cautiously optimistic: the Detroit Tigers won their fifth straight game today. They are six games under .500, seven games out of first place; no one in the AL Central is playing dominating baseball. Maybe the Tigers can overcome their dismal April and May and charge back into this race over June, July, August, and September. As they say, there's still a lot of ball to be played.
1 comment:
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