Football and the family

This weekend I went to Las Vegas with Ty and Matt. Matt’s a friend from our last ward and is now roommates with Ty and D$. Ty was my roommate last year and before that we were roommates in the dorms the year after my mission (which was the year before his).

“He was the best star-pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior... And he was agood friend.”

I met Ty while on my mission. I served in his home ward in my second to last area. We became roommates when we both showed up to BYU in the winter of 2000. I had just gotten home from my mission and he had just finished a semester off of school to work after his highschool graduation. We recognized each other at a meeting for football walk-on hopefuls (both our hopes fizzled when the team cut us without ever even seeing us play). Ironically we were in the same dorm building. I didn’t have a roommate and he hated his, so we just arranged to have him move down to room with me.

“Wonderful! We are now a part of the tribe.”
“Great, just what I always wanted.”

Since then, I’ve gotten to know everyone in Ty’s family a lot more than I did on my mission, as they’ve involved me in just about every family activity. It’s funny to think that I met this family while on my mission, because I don’t really think of my relationship to them as having anything to do with being a missionary. The cumulative experiences I’ve had with them includes going to his brothers’ scout camp, watching fourth of July fireworks with his nephews, attending his sister’s student ward, eating his older brother’s unreal rib dinners, and meeting up with his parents for meals out. Looking back on the past six years, I think I’ve spent nearly as much time with the Lewis family as I have with the Bryants.

“No, he’s from Cali-FORN-ia!”

The Lewises attend the Tahoe North Ward in the Reno Nevada North Stake, but they live in Truckee California. Truckee is right off of Interstate 80, about 15 minutes west of the California, Nevada state line. I’m not trying to teach a geography lesson here, but the whereabouts of Truckee just adds some irony when taken into consideration that this weekend the Wolverines of Truckee, California were playing in the Nevada 3A State football championship.

The Moapa fans were awfully loud during all the pre-game warm ups and up until the opening kick off, but after the touchback Truckee drove 80 yards and scored a touchdown on their opening possession. That shut the opposite sideline up pretty well. Then to further the damage, the Truckee defense held Moapa’s offense to three and out. Then after a punt that placed truckee at midfield, the Wolverines’ first play from scrimmage was a 50-yard pass down the left side line for a touchdown. We didn’t hear much from the other team or their fans the rest of the night.

“I'm afraid we haven't properly house-broken Ms. Kyle. In the plus column, though, she makes a helluva cup of coffee.”

Although there were only eight of them, the Truckee cheerleaders proved to be extremely annoying. I’ve never really appreciated cheerleaders at any sporting event. Well, I take that back—in high school the football team would get together on Monday’s to watch game film, and between plays the camera operator would zoom in on the cheerleaders’ butts—which made the usually boring film session quite enjoyable, but other than their aesthetic appeal (of which the lady Wolverines were lacking), I don’t see why they’re there.

I think it’s safe to assume that in ancient times, the original purpose of cheerleaders was to rally the crowd. A loud crowd can be a real help to a team. At Texas A&M the crowd is so loud that they call themselves the 12th man. Well, it’s not that the Truckee crowd was quiet, but those who understand football understand that there are times during the game where the crowd can either help or hinder its team.

“You’re what the French call, ‘l'incompétent’.”

Third down is a crucial down in football. If the offense prevails, their drive is extended another 4 downs, if the offense is stopped they’ll likely be forced to punt, giving the ball and the opportunity to score in their opponent’s hands. A wise crowd will hush when their offense faces a third down—that way their quarterback’s call from the line of scrimmage can be heard by the rest of the offense, and visa versa, the crowd will erupt with noise when their defense faces a third down—in an attempt to hinder any calls the opposing quarterback might make. When the Truckee offense faced third down, those bone-headed cheerleaders would start their idiotic ra-ra-ra’s, and when the defense faced third downs they simply stood in formation with their pom-poms held behind their backs.

“The force can have a strong influence on the weak minded.”

Since it was clear that the cheerleaders were more interested in reciting their rote chants than in invigorating the crowd, Ty, Dustin and I took it upon ourselves to coach that 12th man. When Truckee’s offense faced third downs, despite the chum-for-brains cheerleaders’ attempts to rouse the crowd, the three of us would stand up and motion to the crowd to silence themselves. And when the Wolverine’s defense lined up for a third down snap we’d jump to our feet hollering at the crowd to get off their duffs and make some ruckus to distract the offense. And the masses in red obeyed us like a well disciplined orchestra at the wand of its maestro, brilliantly responding to the call for a crescendo here or a decrescendo there. And it worked perfectly—our crowd was like the children of Israel at the wall of Jericho, and the goliath’s across the field we’re as mute as poor old Zachariah, before he named his son John the Baptist.

“For Michigan fans, football is a religion. And the Ohio State game is Easter.”

Football is a religion, why else do you think, so many show up to NFL stadiums across their country every Sunday to pay their respects? Like any religion, a father is proud to see his son advance in the ways of manhood. The emotion in Papa Lewis’s face made that obvious. With Saturday night’s win, each of his sons has been part of a state championship team. Both Ty’s parents have given up all of their time for the past 12 years to Truckee football, and it was evident by how many people at the game new them. Seeing it all made me miss my days of high school football and look forward with eagerness for the day I might have a son play for his school.

On the drive back from Vegas Matt slept while Ty and I discussed all the things we’ve learned from football and even talked about how we might react if we were to have a son who didn’t want to play. For me growing up, I never questioned whether I’d play football, my dad played football, we watched football together, and we played catch all the time. When I turned out for the team, from day one I felt like I belonged —there was no adjusting period like there is when you start a new job, or move into a new neighborhood. Me and football—we just fit. And although I loved the game, the comradery, the competition, and the occasional glory, my greatest thrills came from seeing the joy on my dad's face, or hearing my mom talk about how he grinned from ear to ear when I made one great play or another.

“I'm not a child!”
“You're MY child!”

If I had a son who refused to play football, I hope I’d react in the same way I’d want to react to a son or daughter who didn’t agree with my (other) religious beliefs. I’d respect their decision, but it would be quite an exercise in unconditional love. I know it wouldn’t be too big a deal, because I’ll love my children more than I love either of my religions—but, wow—I love football A LOT, so having and loving kids will be unbelievable!

“Roz, I'm going to tell you something that I didn't learn until I became a father. You don't just love your children. You fall in love with them.”

A small price to pay

2 20-yard-line Football tickets: $41
1 package of Stouffers Skillet Sensation: $6
1 box of thin mint peppermint patties: $0.99
A weekend of playing host to my visiting dad: Priceless

I’ve been sick for the past three days, and it’s all thanks to the cold I got from my dad. He had a business trip to St. Louis this week, and he routed his flight through Salt Lake so we could spend the weekend together. He flew in Friday afternoon, and stayed through Sunday morning. But it was enough fun, that even if this cold lasts another week, it will have been worth it.

“Oh, that’s so romanticle!”

We didn’t really have any plans set, so we decided to go to the temple on Friday night—not the brightest idea. In Utah, Friday night is “date night” for many Mormon couples. And by “date” I mean husband and wife go to the temple together, which I can’t see as a very romantic thing, seeing as how men and women do gender segregated work in the temple, so a husband and wife really wouldn’t even sit together for most of the night. Hmm, on second thought, maybe that’s why they go there—they can call it a date but they don’t really have to do anything together—then again, isn’t that exactly what most middle aged couples are looking for anyhow?

“So what do you want?”
“I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves. I want my privacy.”
“No, I mean, what do you WANT?”
“Oh. Dog and a beer.”

Our plan was to grab a quick bite to eat at the temple cafeteria before heading up stairs for an endowment session, but with as many people at the temple as there were, our quick bite to eat turned into the equivalent of waiting in line at Disneyland for the Indiana Jones ride, only without the fastpass.

“Remember the last time we had a quiet drink? I had a milkshake.”
“What did we talk about?”

Despite the crowded lines, the seating area was relatively empty. Dad and I picked the table farthest from everyone and sat to enjoy our chicken a-la-orange and some light dinner conversation. We talked about South Puget Sound League high school football, the health status of aging relatives, our personal exercise routines, dad’s recent sailing adventures, and lots more things that had nothing to do with the spiritual side of things, but everything to do with a kid and his dad just enjoying each other’s company.

“This is not my idea of a swell time.”

After dinner we went upstairs for an endowment session, but the crowds seemed to increase in strength and by this point I wasn’t enjoying anyone’s company. They packed us in to the endowment room to the point that there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. And to make matters worse, in the endowment, men and women sit on separate sides of the room, so I was packed in shoulder to shoulder with nothing but men.

“It always fit perfectly before. I don't think you're half trying.”

Experiences like this are just further evidence that the good Lord has always intended men and women to be together, because even just from a storage standpoint, men are not compatible with other men. By that I mean, you take two men and stack them together closely, there might be plenty of room for them to sit down, but their shoulders will be crammed together—like trying to fit a pair of shoes into a shoe box without pointing them in opposite directions. All evening long my shoulders were at war with the men on either side of me. Sometimes I’d get so frustrated with the incessant physical contact, that I simply surrendered the high ground and slouched over with my elbows on my knees, because at least that gave my shoulders some breathing room.

“Yeah, well, uh, just keep your Power Gloves off her, pal, huh?”

I’m not saying that the temple ordinances should be done differently; I’m just saying that I’d expect a place that teaches the importance of chastity, would prefer that humans keep their bodies a little farther spaced than where they placed us. Maybe the church should start using Tetris as an architectural training tool.

“Shut him up or shut him down!”

Saturday morning Dad and I went to the BYU vs New Mexico game. We ended up sitting right next to the biggest loudmouth I’ve come across in who knows how long. He spoke non-stop for so long, that I thought we’d have to call for the team doctors to bring up an oxygen mask for him. For the most part he’d just state the obvious. After a thwarted third and short conversion attempt he insisted, “That’s a terrible third down play! They didn’t get the first down—now it’s going to be fourth down!” He made probably two intelegent comments throughout the entire 3 hour ordeal, but I’m convinced that those thoughts weren’t his own—I’ll bet they were just regurgitated ideas he'd plagiarized off of the radio head set he’d been listening to for the play-by-play.

“You think I am brave because I carry a gun; well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility... And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there's nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to.”

Dad was sitting between be and the blabbermouth and though the guy was driving me nuts, Dad didn’t seem too phased by it—and by phased, I mean it didn’t seem like dad wanted to tackle this guy to the ground and rip his lungs out the way I wanted to. For a second there I wondered if it even bothered Dad at all that this guy wouldn’t shut up, then about half way through the third quarter, Dad turned to me and muttered under his breath, “why does it seem like I’m a magnet for these kind of people?” I couldn’t help but laugh, because 1.) Dad was as annoyed by him as I was, and 2.) I feel like a weirdo magnet all the time too, so it was funny to hear that my dad also goes through the same crap all the time.

“I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne.”

I felt pretty enlightened after seeing this side of my dad—he was as annoyed as I was, only way more gracious about it. On the walk home, as I was complaining about how annoying the guy was and Dad further impressed me when he said, “Yeah, he was driving me nuts too, but I figured I’d at least give you and especially his poor wife (who was sitting on the other side of the motormouth) a break. I mean, she must have to put up with that all the time.” I walked away with a new respect for my dad that day. He does get annoyed by people, yet he’s willing to put himself in harm’s way so I wouldn’t have to take the bullet—it made me think about how many times he’d done that kind of thing for me in other areas of life.

“The force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. And… my sister has it.”

Dad and I spent the rest of the weekend mostly just loafing around watching lots of college football and several childish movies that I know few other than my dad could tolerate, let alone enjoy. If you’ve ever been at a blockbuster trying to pick a movie and you come across some old Fred McMurray movie, or any number of out-of-date adventure flicks and you think to yourself, “Who on earth ever rents these things?” Well, it’s us—me, my dad… and my sister Stos. In a world where I’m often ridiculed for my taste in movies, I’m glad that I have a dad who is as disturbed as I am.

“All you have to do is think of one happy thought and you’ll fly like me.”

“Mommy!”

“My dad, Peter Pan.”

A father-son relationship is unique from any other relationship—and even more so with me and my dad, being the only males in the family. Driving him to the airport as he was leaving Sunday morning, I got that same feeling I’d get when I was a kid and dad would take me camping, just the two of us, or on a Saturday morning when me and Dad would explore the skeletal structures of near by housing complexes under construction, or the long weekend drives we’d make together as he’d drive me up to Woodinville for an AAU basketball game.

“I sense something. A presence I’ve not felt since…”

And even as I got the same feeling that I got when I was a kid, I could feel our relationship adapting to our new circumstances. We’re still father and son, but we’re no longer adult and child, just a couple of men—one middle aged, one hardly aged.

As I dropped him off at curbside check-in we unloaded his stuff and just before saying goodbye he asked, “so how much do I owe ya?”

I knew what he meant, but still I asked, “Owe me? What for?”

“For the football tickets and the meals and gas.”

“Oh… Nothing,” was my reply. And by ‘nothing’ I meant, “Well, after 25 years of your feeding me, clothing me, housing me and sponsoring my education… as long as you promise to let me stay at your place for a week each summer and on most major holidays, we’ll call it even.”

A weekend of playing host to my visiting dad: Priceless

He just said, “okay,” and smiled, but the sparkle in his eye was too obvious for him to hide. His eyes said what his voice didn’t, “You’ve grown up: I’m proud of you, and I’m glad we’re friends.”

I’m glad we’re friends too, Dad.

"Vote for Pedro"

Today is Election Day. Since I refuse to register as a resident of the state of Utah, I vote via Washington State absentee ballot. As far as I know, with an absentee ballot, you just have to make sure it’s in the mail by Election Day, so last night at about 11 pm I decided to finally sit down and iron out Heath’s Decision 2004.

“Four hours?!”

I figured, all I have to do is black-in a few multiple choice questions, then it’s off to bed, right? Nope! An hour and a half later I was starting to lose patience with all the seemingly identical non-partisan candidates for state judicial seats.

“Artoo, get us off this auto-pilot—it’s gonna get us both killed.”

One guy at work said that when he votes, he just punches a whole for all republican, then skips right to the initiatives and propositions. I don’t really trust either party enough to just say that they should rule the country. So I go through and analyze the candidates one by one. I read their stances, I determine how much they’re covering the facts, and I vote for the one that I feel is more honest or more sincere and outlines features to their plans for issues that I agree are important.

“Do you think people will vote for me?”
“Heck yes! I'd vote for you.”
“Like, what are my skills?”
“Well, you have a sweet bike. And you're really good at hooking up with chicks. Plus you're like the only guy at school who has a mustache.”

I don’t think that either party is evil—I’m pretty conservative, so I tend to identify more with the republican party, but I’m convinced that neither party is so infallible that I’d be willing to commit all my votes to it. Out of curiosity, when I was done voting I went back and tallied all my votes for each party and I was pretty well even: 6 democrats and 7 republicans.

“Vote for Summer.”
“Yeah, right! I'm not voting for her.”
“Then who you gonna vote for?”
“I'm voting for Pedro Sanchez, who do you think?!”

Since I’ve always thought both parties had their flaws, I’ve always considered it a good thing that the system is open to accepting candidates from other parties. I give those candidates an honest chance, but they always seem so weird. The Libertarians seem to think the country can be run without a government, and the Greens seem to think this is a corporation, not a country. I also recall seeing a few candidates from the Socialist party—I say if that’s your bag, either move to Cuba or join one of those polygamist colonies hiding in the mountain west.

“Hey Flaps, So what we’re gonna do?”
“I don't know, what'cha wanna do?”
“Look Flaps, first I say ‘what we’re gonna do?’ then you say ‘I don't know, what'cha wanna do?’ then I say ‘what we're gonna do?’ then you say ‘what'cha wanna do’ let's do something!”
“Ok. What'cha wanna do?”
“Now, don’t start that again!”

The initiatives are always interesting to me. “Do you want charter schools?” or “Should we raise local taxes to pay for light rail expansions?” I don’t know how I come to my decisions about those, because I don’t want higher taxes, but I do think rush hour commutes need some type of alleviation. On something like that I go back and forth in my mind for a while, but then come to the conclusion that I don’t want the expansion, because I predict that the freeways will always be used to capacity—meaning that if we extend the rail people will either not use it and drive, or they’ll use it—relieving the roadways temporarily, until out-of-staters realize that Seattle has great commute traffic and they all move up and restore the traffic ways to crowding and lead to overpopulation of the neighborhoods.

“We need?! Well what about you need?”
“I need? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hmm, I’m sure you don’t.”

There was one proposition that I must have spent 15 minutes trying to figure out. Something about raising taxes for something. I spent forever reading the for and the against on it and couldn’t understand either enough to know which to vote for. Then I read the last line before the voting boxes, “Should this proposition be on the 2005 ballot?” I was so relieved when I saw that—I figured, “sure, what the heck, at least that will give me another year to figure out what the heck they’re talking about!”

“What are you gonna do today, Napoleon?”
“Whatever I feel like I wanna do, gosh!”

I really do enjoy voting. It’s almost a religious experience for me. I hate the work involved in making an educated decision—it’s like a nights worth of homework—but I love the freedom to choose leaders by the “dictates of [my] own conscience” and if I vote that way, and if I can count on most of the American people to vote the same way, then I think this country is in good hands, despite the countless crooks or self-serving politicians who may weasel their way onto a ballot or into office.

Amish envy

I don’t really understand the Amish. Why they choose to live such a labor intensive life when technology offers them an easier and more efficient way is beyond me. Maybe it stems from a dishonesty guilt trip they feel when they say horsepower, but refer to engine power—because what honest man could ever say one thing and mean another?

“Are you enjoying your reading?”
“Oh yeah. I'm learning a lot about manure. Very interesting.”

Despite my lack of understanding of the Amish, I envy them a bit, because with all the hands-on work they do in building their own homes, harvesting their own land and farming their own animal products, they must have a better understanding of the law of the harvest (you reap what you sow) and they probably have more solid patience than I do.

“I should tell you, this kind of coat doesn't have buttons. See? Hooks and eyes.”
“Something wrong with buttons?”
“Buttons are proud and vain, not plain.”
“Got anything against zippers?”

I didn’t grow up wearing plain clothes without buttons. I live in an age and a culture where so many things are given to us as soon as we want them. If postal mail isn’t fast enough for you, use electronic mail; if you don’t want the burden of wandering around town to find a pay phone, why not carry a cell phone in your pocket; sick and tired of being sick and tired? Here, try our new fast acting, long lasting, non-drowsy relief medicine.

“Give me the maximum allowable dosage: find out what will kill me, then back it off a little.”

There are very few things in life that teach us to be patient or to cultivate what we have in faith that it will one day become what we want. I think gardening would be a good teacher of such a lesson. The idea of caring for a plant, of nurturing it from a seed until it matures and either gives fruit or provides beauty—I think it would provide a lot of parallels to how we should approach things in life.

“I sold the cow for some magic beans.”
“BEANS? Wah!”
“But Donald, these aren't ordinary beans, they're magic beans! If you plant these beans in the light of a full moon, do you know what'll happen?”
“Yes! They grow more beans!”

The only experience I’ve had with plants have been the 3rd grade class project I did with Shane Rehberg where the whole class was to plant six pea plants and water them for 6-8 weeks (ours were all dead after 10 days), and a plant I keep on my desk at work—its called a “mother-in-law’s tongue” (it was a gift). Plants like it are called “succulents” which essentially means it’s the kind you don’t have to water all the time. When I first got it, I tried watering once a week but that was killing it, so I haven’t touched it for three months and it looks great. What kind of life lessons can you draw from that?!

I mention this because, at this point in my life, the only struggle I have to face is bachelorhood—which, in Mormon culture, is the equivalent to the celibate life of a monk. Of coarse, my frustrations come not (just) from the fact that I’m not having sex, but I live a lone, and I really wish I had a best girl to come home to, to share my thoughts with instead of just posting them on a blog assuming someone out there cares enough to read them.

“Ya can't live with 'em, ya can't live without 'em.”
“There's something irresistablish about 'em.”

I don’t regret not being married—I’ve never met anyone I wish I were married to, but that is the source of my frustration. How can a guy live for 25 years and not find even one girl he wishes he had for his own (or at least a girl he liked so much that the wish stayed with him long enough to actually marry the girl). I feel helpless to resolve it, and I feel like the powers that be aren’t putting much effort toward it either.

My concerns today aren’t on the source of my frustration but on my reaction to it. If I truly am helpless to the situation, shouldn’t I just be content to hold my ground until those who can change something about it do? I think that an agricultural analogy would explain it better. However, I’ve never farmed corn, so most of what I say about what the farmer’s practices are is a guess—again we see another of the many disadvantages I suffer from not being raised Amish.

“Is this heaven?”
“No, it’s Iowa.”

Take a stalk of corn. Let’s assume that it’s greatest desire in life is to fill the measure of its creation and produce ears of corn. It begins in spring as a seed and is watered and fertilized until it shoots up out of the ground. The gardener continues to water and fertilize it as it grows from a seedling to a stalk. By early summer it reaches its full stature and the gardener discontinues his daily care for the plant and leaves it to the elements until it is ready to be harvested.

The young stalk now goes for weeks in the summer heat without a watering, the only hydration he receives anymore is from the sparse summer rain. With no additional fertilizer to enrich the surrounding soil, our poor stalk is left to consume what’s left in the soil and hope it sees him through the season. The naïve corn stalk doesn’t know everything about farming, but he knows enough about himself to know that he’s always needed fertilizer, so it only makes sense that once he’s exhausted the nourishment from the soil around him, he’ll need to pull up his roots and relocate to a plot with richer soil—how else could he ever hope to meet the farmer’s expectations and sprout some corn?

“Morgan, this crop [circle] stuff is just about a bunch of nerds who never had a girlfriend their whole lives. They're like thirty now. They make up secret codes and analyze Greek mythology and make secret societies where other guys who never had girlfriends can join in. They do stupid crap like this to feel special. It's a scam. Nerds were doin' it twenty five years ago and new nerds are doing it again.”

But as we all know, the stalk doesn’t uproot himself (or maybe the few dumb ones do and that’s why we have inexplicable crop circles), but he stays put, trusting that the farmer wants to see him render ears of corn as badly as he wants to himself. He has faith that if his crop of corn were at risk, that the farmer would return and set things straight. Meanwhile, he just stays in place, waiting in anticipation for the day that the first sign of a husk shoots from his stem.

The summer is long and dry and hot. Anyone wiser would have uprooted long ago in search of a damp patch of fertile soil shaded from the relentless summer sun, but the corn stalk stays, because that’s where the farmer planted him.

I know enough about plants to know that as much as they need water and fertile ground, they also need lots of sunlight, because it’s the sunlight that makes photosynthesis possible. Perhaps, what the calm farmer knows that the frantic corn stalk doesn’t is that fertilizer in the soil isn’t the only way for him to feed. Sure that’s how he’s done it since he was a seed, but now that he’s grown he’s got chloroplasts in his skin, and when the sun hits those babies they’ll provide more nourishment than anyone could ever dream of getting from cow poop mixed into the dirt.

“The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for givin’ me the things I need: the sun, the rain, and the apple seed. Yes, He is good to me.”

Like our young corn stalk, I’m at that point in my life where the watering and the fertilizing are over and I’m on my own, right in the middle of summer. I really do believe that the gardener wants what’s best for me, but sometimes I narrow-mindedly wonder if he’s forgotten that I’m here.

Sometimes I get panicky and want to uproot to that damp shady spot—I could stand marrying her, or I could put up with that for the rest of my life if I had to. But, I’ll bet if I do settle it would just end up in divorce, because how many cobs of corn have you eaten that have come from self-uprooting stalks?

Are my expectations too high? Am I doing something wrong? No. If so the farmer would make a visit. I’d feel guilty instead of lost. Remorse instead of discouragement—because, after all, being left alone to face the strong summer winds isn’t a condemnation, but a preparation—it provides the resistance needed to strengthen and anchor your roots, so when the winds have ceased and the corncobs begin to sprout you’ll be strong enough to handle their weight.

And one shouldn’t compare himself to others who have married young and effortlessly, because it takes a completely different approach to farm full ears of corn than it does that baby corn people serve in salads and at cocktail parties.

“Nice story, Mr. Dickens.”
“Oh, thanks. If you liked this, you should read the book.”

See Job 4-6.