1. Today, my mind wandered back to 1983. I wish I'd been keeping some kind of record of things back then, so I have to trust my memory. I know that when Easter rolled around on April 3, 1983, spring break at Whitworth was coming to an end. I seem to remember that I took the Greyhound to Seattle during that break, but I'm not sure when I returned to Spokane nor can I remember if I came to Kellogg for Easter Day.
But two memorable things happened that weekend and were on my mind on Easter Day today. First, on the bus ride home from Seattle, I read Adrienne Rich's collection of essays, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence, a book that rattled many assumptions I had about human nature and the universality of experience and had (and has had) a lasting impact on my understanding of and conversations with women writers, philosophers, colleagues, students, and friends over the next thirty-five years or so. It's one of those books that so challenged my thinking, and, in doing so, excited me, that I'll always remember where I was when I read it.
The other memorable event that Easter weekend happened on Easter Monday. I was back in Spokane, in my apartment, and I watched the NCAA tournament men's championship final between North Carolina State and Houston.
Like a sizable majority of basketball fans across the country, I expected Houston to dominate this game and win easily, but that's not what happened at all. In many people's assessment, NC State's 54-52 victory was, and remains, the biggest upset in the tournament's history. Just for the record, I can't decide which upset I think was the most astonishing: Texas Western's defeat of Kentucky in 1966, NC State's victory in 1983, or Villanova's defeat of Georgetown in 1985. I don't think I'll ever figure it out.
Well, since that 1983 game happened on Easter Monday, I decided that on Easter Day today I'd watch the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary that told the story of that 1983 NC State team and their coach, Jim Valvano. It was entitled, "Survive and Advance".
From the opening of this movie, I was either near tears or in tears. The set up was perfect. The living members of that team sat around a long table, in 2013, thirty years after their improbable championship, and swapped tales. Coach Jim Valvano had died of cancer twenty years earlier, at 47 years old, ten years after their championship. This documentary was both a memoir of the basketball games that comprised their miracle run to the championship and a tribute to the imagination, love, and irrepressible spirit of Coach Jim Valvano.
From beginning to end, I loved this movie. I loved the scenes from around the table. I loved the interviews with the players gave away from the reunion. The movie was stocked with filmed highlights of many games throughout the 1982-83 season, including their most improbable capturing of the Atlantic Coast Conference season's end tournament and their march to the NCAA championship. I loved the clips of Jim Valvano, interviews he gave, speeches he gave, including his famous ESPY speech, given less than two months before he died.
I loved watching this movie on Easter Day. NC State had been given up for dead countless times in 1982-83 season. Watch the movie and you'll see for yourself. But, in the spirit of Coach Valvano's famous words, "Don't give up. Don't ever give up." and in the spirit of the way we always live in the company of countless resurrections around us all the time, the NC State Wolfpack arose from the dead and one of the great stories in all of sports unfolded.
2. I knew we had some ground beef in the freezer and I asked Debbie if she'd made a meatloaf dinner today. Debbie's meatloaf dinners bring to mind a day in August of 1998 as Debbie, Molly, Patrick, and I were making our way across the USA in Debbie's maroon Toyota van on our way to visit Debbie's mom in North Carolina. On this particular day, we arrived in Blue Springs, Missouri around 9:00 or so. We drove that day over 600 miles from Denver. We had a room reserved at a Motel 6 and it was close to a Bob Evans restaurant. We piled out of the van to go eat and we were nearly suffocated by the thick Missouri humidity.
I'd never eaten at a Bob Evans before. Tired, hot, in need of sustenance and refreshment, I ordered the meatloaf dinner. It included a potato and canned green beans. I also ordered a Coca Cola with lemon. I swear, I've never enjoyed a meal more.
I enjoyed that meatloaf dinner at Bob Evans so completely that I began to request it for my birthday dinners over the years and Debbie complied by fixing meatloaves that were far better than what I ate that sultry August night.
Over the past several years, Debbie and I have not been together on my December 27th birthday often. We were together on 12-27-2019, but I wanted a lighter dinner and we had a cheese and salami and wine meal, not meatloaf.
But, on this Easter Sunday, as if it were my birthday and as a way of recalling that night in Missouri, I asked Debbie to make a meatloaf dinner with canned green beans. Debbie also made roasted potatoes and I had some mini Cokes and a lemon on hand and so Debbie resurrected this most perfect of all meals and I loved it.
3. After letting this dinner digest by working crossword puzzles in the Vizio room, I brought the tv out to the living room and Debbie recommended we watch some more Peter Gunn.
So we did.
We drank small pours of George Dickel Rye Whiskey and experimented with shaking drops of orange and, later, angostura bitters in our rye.
We marveled at the light and shadows of the cineamatography of Peter Gunn and at its commitment to jazz music.
Then we switched gears.
We watched the first three episodes of Family Affair and learned how Buffy, Jody, and Cissy came to live with Uncle Bill and Mr. French and then enjoyed the episode when Buffy and Jody buy their Uncle Bill a horse. (No, really!)
I saw Family Affair with adult eyes tonight. Back in junior high and early high school, the few times I ever watched this show, I never realized that it was a story of amazing grace -- Buffy, Jody, and Cissy once were lost and now were found. Moreover, I didn't think much about how these three kids contributed to a transformation of the inward lives of Uncle Bill and Mr. French.
I was touched.
Debbie and I were on a roll.
We'd watched the origin story of Family Affair and decided to take a look at the first episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Here again, I was in for a new experience -- as a kid, I hadn't paid much attention to Rose Marie as an actor, singer, dancer, and comedian on this show. She was awesome. I think her appearances on Hollywood Squares dulled my appreciation of what a splendid and versatile performer she was. We watched the first two episodes of season one.
It was past midnight by now, but what did we have to do tomorrow? No need to hit the hay just yet.
So, one more origin story.
The Andy Griffith Show.
The creators of the first episode of the first season built the initial story around the arrival of Aunt Bee and Opie's resistance to having her take the place of the former housekeeper, Rose.
It actually paralleled Episode 2 of Family Affair. In it, Mr. French packs his bags and takes leave of Uncle Bill and the kids, but returns -- I won't spoil why he does. Likewise, Aunt Bee comes to believe that she will never win over Opie and is all but out the door when suddenly she's persuaded to stay.
After our mini-marathon of past television shows and small pours of rye, it was past 1:00 a.m. and we decided this fun couldn't last all night and we each turned in.
April 13th is National Scrabble Day and Stu has written a limerick for the occasion:
There's only one vowel picked at first.
Then a "q" and an "x", you are cursed.
Best think of words quick,
To get new letters to pick.
Or end with a score that is worst.
No comments:
Post a Comment