Get Back into Formation and Throw the Fucking Football

Sports metaphors kind of suck no matter who uses them. Over the years politicians have talked about how they will win the election using the ground game. Lawyers talk about a last minute trial ploy that brings about an acquittal as a Hail Mary pass. Sports metaphors are so over used that even when you are watching ESPN the hosts kind of grimace when someone starts down the road in an interview with one of the hoary old chestnuts.

Yesterday was rough. Nobody died. Nobody was arrested. Things failed. People failed. I shook and quivered. I cried. My heart pounded and my head hurt. Nothing is easy anymore, not for me, not for those I love. The biggest hurt, the gaping wound that strains my one last nerve is that I can not fix any of the situations; any remedy lies in the hands of others.

As bad news washed across me like waves the only thing that actually soothed me was a bit of a recent Bruce Springsteen lyric that I heard as I left my office weak and red eyed. It was from the song Wrecking Ball. The section of the song is this:

Now when all this steel and these stories, they drift away to rust And all our youth and beauty, it's been given to the dust When the game has been decided and we're burning down the clock And all our little victories and glories have turned into parking lots When your best hopes and desires are scattered through the wind And hard times come, and hard times go And hard times come, and hard times go And hard times come, and hard times go And hard times come, and hard times go And hard times come, and hard times go Yeah just to come again Bring on your wrecking ball

The two pieces that stuck with me were the chorus, “And hard times come, and hard times go, Yeah just to come again,” and “And all our youth and beauty, it's been given to the dust. When the game has been decided and we're burning down the clock. And all our little victories and glories have turned into parking lots.” Yeah the hard times have come but they have come before. If they don’t pass for me well someone else will get a break and things will improve. Somehow change will happen. Coming round to that particular thought kind of calmed me down.

But the other piece of the song resonated more. “When the game has been decided and we’re burning down the clock.” I turned 58 last week and it is at least quite late in the third quarter if not early in the fourth quarter. Lots of fouls are being called. There are tons of offside and late hits calls right now but has the game been decided for me? Can I grind out a real win in the ground game? Can I throw a “Hail Mary” hoping for a receiver to be in the end zone? Don’t know the answer to either of these questions. While I might say I wish I did in reality that wouldn’t be true. I just want to keep living. I just want to keep trying.

Probably the reason I began this blog was to capture the important moments in life, to remember the people that mattered and to try and sort out what it means for me. Names like Kathy, Nan, Barb, Wendy, Nancy and Francie are hidden in each line I write. Moments of honor like giving my 8th grade graduation speech, being elected the President of the MSU Communications Undergraduate Students or winning the notorious Homo-owner’s case, I have so wanted to work through them and memorialize them. And somehow I have to capture a variety of bad behaviors like a late night trip to Philadelphia following some brownies eaten at a Jefferson Starship concert or being stuck under a truck on the Lodge Freeway waiting for someone to come rescue us after a car wreck following a long night at the Woodbridge Tavern. All of this I needed to craft into something, a stretch of words that interests somebody sometime.

This isn’t just running down the clock for me. It is an act of creation. It is me trying to create something in the nature of art. Why I write whether the days are bad or good is because I still want to be on the playing field.