1. Ever since we were youngsters, I marveled at what I came to regard as Don Knott's elegance.
By elegant, I don't mean fancy.
I mean that the way Don wore everyday clothes, often a golf shirt with a regular pair of pants, was, to my eye, always graceful. Not only did he wear clothes well, he almost seemed to glide through the world, with an ease and an efficiency that I thought came naturally to him, that, again I marveled at.
Don's elegance was, to me, most evident on the golf course, baseball field, and basketball court.
Again, without being fancy, Don always dressed impeccably on the golf course and his elegant golf swing perfectly matched his elegant appearance. I don't know if Don ever took golf lessons from a professional, but I do know, because I played golf with Don as a teenager when we first took up the game, that from the beginning Don swung a golf club elegantly, smoothly, with a steady, syrupy tempo. Around and on the greens, Don pitched, chipped, and putted not only with intelligence and imagination, but with the same smooth and elegant tempo he employed off the tee and in the fairway.
I know a lot of hard work and practice lay behind Don's brilliant golfing ability, but he made it look effortless, in much the same way he made just looking good seem effortless.
Don performed with this natural smoothness and elegance as baseball/softfall player, too. In the field, as a second baseman, Don was nearly flawless and made vacuuming ground balls and firing accurate throws to first base look simple. At the plate, much like on the golf course, Don swung the bat efficiently, elegantly, and most effectively, drilling well placed line drives to the outfield and, on occasion, blasting a pitch out of the park.
Don also worked hard, especially in high school, to develop a smooth, elegant, highly reliable jump shot and he succeeded. Once again, I have to use the word marvel. I didn't get a lot of playing time our senior year, and so, from the bench, I got to watch Don play countless minutes and I marveled at his consistency, the grace of his movement on the court, and not only the beauty of his jump shot, but its accuracy.
I didn't see Don play a lot of basketball after high school -- I saw him play some minutes the one season he was on the North Idaho College team and very occasionally saw him play men's league games in the Silver Valley. But on those occasions, around 1983, when I got to go to a Johnny's Bar game or two, I saw that Don's elegant basketball skills had matured -- and along with the improvement of his already stellar abilities, his movement on the court was as smooth and deceptively effortless as ever.
So in these physical ways, the way he wore clothes, his golf swing, his performance as a baseball fielder and hitter, his efficiency on the basketball court as well as the way he kept up his vehicles and the way he kept up his house and the patio we all enjoyed so much, Don was stylish and elegant -- I'd even say classy.
The memories I've been reliving over the weekend in the wake of Don having died have been, in large part, playing over and over again this natural elegance I always admired and marveled at over the more than sixty years Don and I were friends.
I've thought, too, about the many honest and serious talks we had, the great stories I've heard about wild escapades Don and other of my friends undertook when we were younger, and Don's devotion to the Oakland A's.
But, whoa, that golf swing, That jump shot, The way he swung a baseball bat. His ease. He was blessed with an admirable elegance.
I marveled at that.
2. At tonight's family dinner at Carol and Paul's house, we celebrated Cosette's 29th birthday. Cosette requested shrimp scampi and Carol fulfilled her request deliciously. Christy brought a very tasty baked pepper jelly cheese dip with crackers for an appetizer and Debbie threw together a delicious vegetable salad and brought two kinds of bread to use to sop up the shrimp scampi juices. I didn't contribute anything to this dinner!
Cosette also requested cheesecake for dessert and Carol baked one served with huckleberry sauce.
3. I sent out an email to as many high school classmates as I have email addresses for about Don Knott's death. It's been heartening to read the responses people wrote, to know the high regard so many felt for Don. Likewise, the responses to my blog post yesterday have also been heartening and the same thread runs through all of these responses: Don Knott was a great guy and it's terribly sad that he has passed away, that he has left us.
No comments:
Post a Comment