TUNA TOWER - Years ago a Philly friend of mine came down to visit Lewes and I took him for a walk along the docks by Irish Eyes, sometimes known as “my bar.” We came upon a 31-foot Bertrum with a tuna tower and he asked, “What is all that?”
“It’s a tuna tower,”I said.
“Man, it must be hard to pull in a tuna from way up there,” he said.
The Dolphins pulled in a big bluefin for sure and named him executive vice president of the franchise for the next four years, citing the acumen or was it the albumen of Bill Parcells. Trust me, I know smart when I see it and The Tuna doesn’t impress me with his brilliance.
You may ask who am I and I respond, “Who are you?” because every 66-year-old former lineman on the planet who played with a leather helmet has Attention Deficit Disorder and Minimal Brain Dysfunction. Did you ever notice that great grades, GPA and honors classes count for little to nothing in the world of high-paying jobs?
SOMETIMES STUPID - I know a sportswriter guy like me who has been a beat writer for the Philadelphia 76ers for 30 years. I recently wrote him and asked if anyone in the city could name two people on this year’s team.
He asked me what point I was trying to make and I told him I made fewer points than Manute Bol, who averaged two per game but was nicknamed “Lunch” because he was always “lunching,” which was a mid-’80s term for talking much smack.
Comedian Joe Conklin, who performed at Irish Eyes Rehoboth last summer and earlier at a Slam Dunk pre-tournament banquet, asked the question, ”What do you get when you cross Manute Bol and Shawn Bradley?”
Answer: “Fifteen feet of nothing.”
SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN - There are those who meet and plan and those who plan to meet, and then people like me who plan not to show up. Planning can kill spontaneity; some of the most rigorous teacher planners I’ve known are just boring because real life is dynamic and changing and crazy. You can be all about the plan, just don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work. I don’t know what the plan is for the upcoming Bay Ball Classic at Cape Henlopen High School because no plans have been announced and no planners have come out in the open but the website bayballclassic.org shows a great four-day tournament and we don’t want to plan it, just watch it. Host Cape knows the Little Big House is the site for the tournament; beyond that they admit to not knowing much of anything. The last two years the tournament featured good basketball at $5 a ticket and there is room to move around in the stands but no VIP lounge.
There are continuous games from Wednesday, Dec. 26 through Sunday, Dec. 30, in three brackets featuring 25 teams. There are 34 total games with national power Rice of New York City heading the field.
KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS - Ironies all over the freaking place. Kentucky, the birth place of bluegrass and a state in which everyone can play music, benefits from 22 Florida State players being suspended from the upcoming Music City Bowl for cheating on an online test. And the name of the class? Music Appreciation.
There is a difference between kicking back under cover of thunderous iPod hip-hop and being able to discern the difference between an oboe and a contrabassoon. Music appreciation classes are all about appreciating the high-brow music that gladiator football guys don’t get and, in fact, hate. Maybe cheating is better than having true taste contaminated.
DRUM CORPS - The Cape drum corps played before last Tuesday’s boys basketball game and during game stoppages and everyone agreed it was pretty awesome. That’s part of the show, watching the student body support each other. The cheerleaders looked great dancing along the baseline to music that was all beat and no words.
CHAIR IN A BOX - My 4-Runner was being aligned at C.F. Schwartz in Dover last Thursday, so while I waited I walked over to Sam’s Club and observed many nonaligned people driving around in electric carts stopping at all the free samples of toothpick food stations. I saw an inviting, red leather chair, sat in it and thought, not bad for $448, but you had to assemble it. And there were boxes of chairs and people buying them and other people waiting for me to get up so they could sit in the test chair.
I saw a woman totally out of rack, almost segmented, driving a cart. But after checkout she had to get up because people steal carts and drive around their neighborhood and bedrooms. I offered to help this woman who couldn’t straighten all the way up, but she yelled something that ended with “off.”
Then she pushed her cart and butted in front of a long line and people yelled, “Dude!” and she also gave them the “off” directive. Everyone in line had a giant “Cheez–It” box in their carts. I didn’t have a cart or car and I wasn’t going to limp back across several highly trafficked parking lots carrying a giant “Cheez-It” box, which is just an invitation to a mugging. Sam’s Club and Gold’s Gym represent the nonaligned spine of my social matrix.
SNIPPETS - Beware the dreaded sports year in review stories are heading in your direction and I know something is wrong with me because I can only remember the bad ones, in particular Michael Vick. Imagine having your picture in the paper along with a story of how you liked to hang, electrocute and body slam dogs to death. You would have to argue, “It’s not all I do. What about all the good things?” But all that would just be interpreted as a feeble cry for whelp.
Merry Christmas or not, it’s completely up to you. Go on now, git!
