Three Beautiful Things 12/08/17: Breakfast at Sam's, Strong Ale and Pizza, Return to Shadle Park High School

1. Last week I missed Friday morning breakfast at Sam's because I was fasting for blood work, but this morning I trudged down to Sam's in the 20-something degree chill and warmed right up with coffee and an order of corned beef hash, eggs, and English muffin. It was a good morning, especially as Buff and I compared notes about who played on the lousiest Kellogg Wildcat basketball team -- which team  was worse, the 1969-70 Wildcats my sophomore year or the 72-73 'Cats when Buff was a sophomore? He might have convinced me that his team was lousier since they only won two games and the 69-70 'Cats won six.

One thing I enjoy about talking with fellow basketball players from the early 70's in Kellogg is none of us can pretend like we were great and exaggerate our accomplishments. We stunk. If anything, we exaggerate how bad we were! (Oh -- each of us tasted a little success and our 71-72 team beat Lewiston and CdA, epic wins, and nearly beat Moscow in the district tournament. I contributed zero to those big wins. I contributed zero to the near win. So, I can claim all kinds of bragging rights to being a total scrub and the team clown who dove for loose balls during pre-game warmups on that team.)

2. I drove to CdA this afternoon and picked up Byrdman for a pre-game beer and pizza before heading to Spokane to watch the Kellogg Wildcats take on the Shadle Park Highlanders. We went to Growler Guys where I drank one 10 oz. pour of Elysian's fine, sweet, slightly boozy, and warming  strong ale, Bifrost.  We split a pepperoni pizza and had a good time yakkin' about all kinds of stuff before we drove to State Line to meet up with Stu.

3. Stu, Lars, Byrdman, and I all piled into the Sube at Lars' house and headed out to Shadle Park High School to watch Kellogg play Shadle.

The last time I was in this gymnasium was on January 24, 1970. Our (possibly the worst ever) Wildcat squad got creamed that night 106-53. Lars, Byrdman, and I were all on that squad and we came to this game to see whether the 2017-18 Wildcat squad would help us preserve the fact that we gave up the most points ever scored by a team in a Greater Spokane League tilt.

Had we wanted to, we could have cracked open bottles of champagne after the game. Our record of futility remained firmly intact.  In fact, Shadle won tonight by only two points, 53-51, and the 'Cats had several opportunities to win the game. Now, if you are keeping score at home, you will see that our 1969-70 Wildcat team gave up more points to Shadle than the total score of tonight's two teams. In fact, as victims of a record smashing creaming, our Wildcat squad scored more points than either team tonight.

You might say the 1969-70 Wildcats had a porous defense.

A highlight of the trip to Spokane for me was seeing two guys I knew at Whitworth back in the late 70s. I didn't know Ron Brooks very well, but we met back in the old days. He is the longtime baseball coach at Shadle Park and I had a great time sitting next to him at tonight's game and yakkin'.

At Whitworth, I knew Bruce Hafferkamp (Shadle's Athletic Director) a lot better and it was really fun to see him after nearly forty years. He was busy with his professional duties and we didn't get to talk much, but I hope he and Coach Brooks will both come to Kellogg in January when Shadle and Kellogg play again at Andrews Gymnasium.

Here's a picture, from left to right, of me, Coach Brooks, Stu, Byrdman, and Lars at the Kellogg/Shadle Park contest:

Four Ancient Wildcats Joined by Coach Brooks

Thanks to Stephen Shepperd for the photo.