My Heart Break Hoosiers-- They Find a Way

My Heart Break Hoosiers-- They Find a Way

To Lose. Again. It's not financial ruin or famine or catastrophe or war. It's Indiana football. Losers most of the time. It should not matter much, but it is hard when you care. Like me.

Last night, it happened again. The Indiana football team was on the road, they had more seasoned veterans against the youthful and down on their luck Golden Gophers. IU was considered to be the winning pick by the Fox1 professionals touting the Friday night match up, estimated to win by a touch down by all of them. These are smart guys, former coaches and Heisman winners. I was set and watching every minute. However: no, they don't know how Indiana football performs. Or chokes. As they did end up doing by the last minute of the game on this cold rainy night. Again. Minnesota had been crushed last week by a very struggling Nebraska squad. IU had played Penn St. tough enough to win the Saturday before. Both teams going in different directions? The Gophers had more key injuries.

Even the he rain probably helped the Hoosiers more in Minneapolis.

IU moved the ball the first half decently, but ended up with 3 field goals for a measly 9 points. One FG came after 3 downs and done subsequent to a fortuitous turnover by the home team. But the HOOSIERS could not move the ball! Meanwhile the never played before D-1 Minnesota back up QB Tanner Morgan picked the Hoosiers apart for 21 points. Down by 12 at the half. This was a pretty poor start but correctable.

It got worse in the 3rd quarter, then trailing the hometown heroes 31-9. I was in despair. They probably had a better crowd than what IU fans would provide in Bloomington. Typical. Minnesota was 3-4, IU 4-4.

We--ahem, IU had the Penn State Nittany Lions beat just last week! We outproduced them! But lost on special teams play. What was going on with these guys?

Do I sound defeatist? Like a pessimist? Let me take you back down some of my memory lane...

I remember following some IU football back to the 1970s. I fully recall Indiana playing the vaunted Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints school Brigham Young in the crazy Holiday Bowl of 1979. I was eight. It was a big party occasion at the Wankier/Gilchrist home. Little did I know then how much I would devote myself later in life to either program. I am became quite ensconced by 1983 or so. I am devotee of both teams: the often hapless Hoosiers and the more than often gritty BYU Cougars.

Maybe it all started for me in 1979? Maybe it will go on for me till 2079, but I digress... 

We cannot know the future. Maybe Indiana will go back to Rose Bowl some day? Not for now, assuredly...

IU had its first bowl win over BYU in 1979, a harbinger of less to come. BYU went on to greatness in the early eighties, while my hometown Hoosiers also did have a decent run from the late 1980s to the early 1990s by going to six bowls in 8 years. Then the train derailed by the mid 1990s, until once in 2007 when they rallied for a dead coach Terry Hoeppner (all respect to him and his loved ones), a formerly fired coach who got them to two bowls that they lost (Kevin Wilson), but were highly competitive in them two and three years ago (2015, 2016).

Enter the current second year coach Tom Allen, who has emphasized defense.

Not enough so far, that is for sure.

Otherwise, we beat Penn State last week, we beat Minnesota last night. 

We would be 6-3, on the way to a bowl, no matter the last 3 games in November of this year.

Now, they all matter, most likely to a resurgent Purdue (despite them coming up short to Michigan State over the weekend). Maryland should prove as tough as last year, when my wife and I watched IU lose a shoot out in College Park, mostly on dumb IU errors. We saw IU barely beat Rutgers (there is a really struggling program) a few weeks ago in Piscataway. Yet, historically, Rutgers has seen more success and bowl seasons than Indiana.

It is relatively easy to qualify for a bowl game nowadays. Just go 6-6, and occasionally 5-7. Even 5-7 looks hard now for my hard pressed Hoosiers.

Ugh.

My Hoosiers, sounds too much like losers. Do I have to resort to only the basketball team as thousands of native Hoosiers have already done over the long, trying decades?

No. This team can still win.

I don't know if they will, against the Terrapins, the Wolverines, the Boilermakers, who look like world beaters after crushing number 2 Ohio State.

Ugh, I care too much.

Go IU: fear the Turtle, take care of the ball. And win.

I saw them beat Michigan and Ohio State in the same year. We can do this.

I pray that Tom Allen keeps them coming. IU will break some others' hearts. Other than our own, my own.

Yes, I am not a realist. I am an IU football optimist.

We can win... Just not as likely.

We find ways--er, the Indiana Hoosiers find ways-- to lose. Yes.

Maybe thus it will ever be.

The game last night? In our hands. Then out of our hands. We had tied it at 31 with the possession to win!

Thus is the pigskin, the elusive game of bashes and bruises.

Not a bull to be slain like in a Hemingway novel, or gloves to knock faces or the current vogue of the UFC. This is a another "man's game", dressed in colorful uniforms and helmets of non-deadly use.

This is how we care sometimes.

 

 

You Don't Have to Believe in Jesus as Lord and King--But You Should

 You Don't Have to Believe in Jesus as Lord and King--But You Should

There are around two billion Christians in the world as of 2018. Two out of seven, give or take. That's a lot. However, when speaking of a lot, in the 21st century there are many more "nones" than ever before. More people than ever do not subscribe to any organized belief or religion, many are convinced atheists.

But you should find him. He's there.

Keep searching, don't give up.

Children are Good-- And necessary

Children are Good-- And necessary

Right?

We as humans have been raising children for millenia; before us in the last thousand years, our evolutionary ancestors did this for millions of years. We are animals, yes. God sparked or not, our roots stretch beyond horizons that are difficult to fathom. Before the modern times of the demographic shift (children surviving in large numbers, becoming dependents rather than immediate assets in the micro-economy), offspring were key to survival because of sheer labor on the farm, or as a defense across the vast expanses where various tribes or factions would threaten families' livelihoods or existence.

We live in a modern, or post-modern age, where children can seem like a drawback, like anchors on the modest ships that we, their parents, are, floating across the waters of life. They can seem like a drag.

But of course, we still need them. 

Children are Good-- And necessary

Right?

We as humans have been raising children for millenia; before us in today's times, in the last thousand years, our evolutionary ancestors did this for millions of years. We are animals, yes. God-sparked or not, our roots stretch beyond horizons that are difficult to fathom. Before the modern times of the demographic shift (children surviving in large numbers, becoming dependents rather than immediate assets in the micro-economy), offspring were key to survival because of sheer labor on the farm, or as a defense across the vast expanses where various tribes or factions would threaten families' livelihoods or existence.

We live in a modern, or post-modern age, where children can seem like a drawback--like anchors on the modest ships that we, their parents--are, floating across the waters of life. They can seem like a drag.

But of course, we still need them. 

They need us, we need them.

As parents we discover how we fit into their lives and they in ours.

No one fit is the same. Just like any relationship, it is unique.

Every parent needs their  autonomy; but they, these smaller dependent organisms, like limbs and fingers, a larger, older body needs their appendages, which children become as an adult parent matures and ages.

To a larger degree the community, communities in which all of us live, is the same.  Parents without children, which seems impossible, is possible through any community. Society has its independents and dependents; in the end we are all dependent on one another.

As lonely as a person may be: he or she as a hiker, a driver, a lone customer at a rural night cafe or an urban early morning diner-- that loner depends on others not to drive in their path, not to rob or harm them, not to disrupt their life in a way that obstructs their existence.

Everything, everyone has its place, literal family or no. 

Thus, a parent, and more hopefully a duo, more intrinsically connected and interwoven with their own blood and charge, forge forth to provide and develop their youth.

This is the family.

This is life. Parent of one, five, eight, or none, we are all parents. 

And we are all children.

We need grandparents, uncles, aunts, good neighbors in every sense.

And yes, we need our children, as much if not more than they need us.

The life cycle continues.

The earth, our great wet planet, needs parenting too. It is our child.

We come from it, we impact it, we leave it better or worse.

This is humanity's great collective marriage. 

And we, its children. Are we anthropods, us gangly bipods, necessary children to our home planet?

I think we are. And all its other iterations of the seven odd kingdoms, protozoa, fungi, and strange invisible eukaryotes: we all belong, we are all life's children.

And the parent from afar, it must certainly exist.

Children need parents, thus it ever was.

Who is the parent of your soul? Is it only the vast sky and beyond and above, the larger universe?

You are a child.

God is your parent. Or rather, there must be teams of them.

In the biological sense this is true to the tune of thousands of progenitors. 

I submit that this is cosmically so as well.

Lies the Adversary Will Tell You

Lies the Adversary Will Tell You

God is non-existent.

And, if He, this alleged God, is around somewhere, He is awfully cruel.

God is maybe a God, but He is not a He. He might as well be a She. 

God is a She.

No;  God has no gender. 

God has no body, parts, nor passions.

God is everything and nothing. 

Wait: there is no God!

God wants you to submit to Him and not know why.

God makes promises that He does not fulfill.

God is a God of lies.

God wants your misery.

There is no point to life.

There is no lasting eternal anything.

No one can know everything.

Nothing is all powerful.

Everything is finite, nothing lasts forever. 

Love is not real.

And even if God permits a real love to exist, and so many feel it. it cannot last forever.

Nothing exists after death.

Death is final.

Hate and all passions are fickle emotions.

Feelings are transitory.

There is no such thing as eternal joy.

God does not talk to people, face to face.

God does not a spirit to touch His subjects, His children.

God created nothing.

The universe is an accident.

Life is probable but not by design.

Life has no plan.

There are no absolutes rights or wrongs.

Truth, morality is relative.

God has never made promises to His creations.

Promises from an unknown God, from dubious sources like human witnesses who deceive, are not helpful to the human condition.

Believe it.

Or: read on. Read more. Read, ponder, and pray.

Try a thing called faith. Attempt to commune with the Universe, with your soul, with ... God.

Do not take my word for it.

But, trust me-- do not believe in the words or temptations of the adversary.

Follow your heart. Be guided by your feelings. Let your brain rationalize the settings.

Do not give in to fears or doubts. 

Fears and doubts exist for a reason: to arrive at the eventual goal.

Who, or what is your adversary?

 

 

Seeing Life and History Through the Eyes and Heart of Ernest

Seeing Life and History Through the Eyes and Heart of Ernest

     I think that it is appropriate or fortuitous irony that Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was named "Ernest/earnest"; a word in the English language that means honest, striving to be open and transparent, being someone or something that is real in his/her attempt to do or be the thing that they want to do without trickery or chicanery.  Without cheating. Yes, safe to say that Ernest Hemingway wanted the "real". At least in his writings. He did not want to cheat or to be false. He, of all people, never wished to be duplicitous, not hiding or absconding the truth. That is what most people take away from his writing, I would assert.  Although, biographers  and the rest of us observers can certainly find the imperfections and pecadillos of his life, how he as anyone can be false and secretive, or hypocritical.
   
      In his writing Hemingway tried to achieve a true core of reality, to be earnest, open, truthful: Hemingway is known to most Americans as a realist, and perhaps to the rest of the world (what do Germans and Russians and Chinese think of him? hard hitting? rugged? truthful?) as a "man's man", a rugged gentleman who pursued "manly" things and tried to arrive at the heart of reality and the truth, whatever that may be. He himself tried to be the person that life meant for a person to be, to suck up all its juices-- and put it on paper to share with the rest of us. Many of those things that he tried to communicate through his literature was the truth of death, war, heartache, passion (which included alcohol), sport, spectacle-- but not fake spectacle-- for example, bullfighting lead to real consequences that were both bloody and risky. A spectacle with real world results, if you will. A sport "for keeps".

    Albeit mostly through  fiction, much of the literature based on real experiences and true life emotions and knowledge, informed by his own senses and perceptions, Hemingway became a scion of literature in the American and global conscious for his truth, his earnestness to convey passion and life as he knew it.  It resonated with people as real, and became great in the eyes of millions. In the late 20th century it was recognized that Hemingway was among the list of "Top 5 American" authors of that post-modern age, one hundred years of formative human existence. These authors are, in no particular order:

1. Ernest Hemingway

2. John Steinbeck

3. Jack London

4. William Faulkner

5. F. Scott Fitzgerald

   In this group of American men, and yes, they are all men, (I am not trying to advance that men are the best as opposed to female writers, and that a woman or four might be the better US authors for the 20th century; this was not my generated list--it has sat with me for decades now) they all five represent different parts of truth and reality.  Yet, like all "great" authors that are recognized as universally whole, and essential to the human condition, as I define a great author to be able to be defined, they all share and communicate universal truthes about us, the human family.

    Jack London, perhaps the least of the five, goes into rather fabulous tales of men (and beasts) and the outdoors; the sheer physicality of challenging land and sea and other human obstacles, arriving perhaps closest to the essence of survival at its most delicate, or living and existing most vitally at the basest root: life is hard, and treacherous; simply the earthly elements alone are enough to make life and the world a hard place. Through his use of animals as characters, and the usually hardy characterizations of people in the north of the Canadian Yukon and Alaska, London shows an earthy world of brute strength and naturalistic cunning. Of the five great writers, London might stretch the parameters of reality the most, the archetypes embodied in dogs, or more importantly, half dog-wolves, that must scrap and fight for their mere existence, and take the arduous pathways that they must alight onto and grind into in order to achieve their success, their end state finality of triumph or failure.

    Hemingway does this too, and sometimes on a grander scale. Like in the backdrop of a human conflict in the greater political military sense, such as the Civil War in Spain, or better even, World War I.  He, like London, embodies these traits and narratives in the individuals while in the outdoors: Nick Adams in northern Michigan, a bullfighter in the ring, a fisherman in the Caribbean, a hunter in Africa.  Man versus nature at its finest. Like the stories of Jack London, an individual versus all the elements: the evils of humans, beasts, and the elements. One man, proto-typically, can conquer them all. Or not. Human will is a huge theme.

    John Steinbeck explores a lot of human terrain, interestingly originating on the Pacific West Coast, as opposed to Hemingway, who is based in the middle and upper parts of the United States.  Jack London is also California-based, but most of his stories take place farther north, to the Arctic circle. Both Steinbeck and Hemingway eventually make it to Europe, and there they do their share of explicating the Continent of American origins, which is important. We must know them, the people and byways of Europe, to know ourselves as Americans. And the wars, irrespective of the Yankee interventions, help us know who we are, and how ugly we can be. Humans and beasts, we all suffer under the same conditions. Cruelty and dire pain are a part of our sojourn. Like a bullfight.

    War.  It's gritty, it's heartbreaking, it has all the pathos you ever need. Hemingway and Steinbeck understand this. It is perhaps humanity at its worst and best.  And they both witnessed and felt it.  As an author, a writer, a narrator of the human condition, this is probably the prerequisite.

    I am not sure if the greatest volumes in human history do it justice: the records of Herodotus, the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Art of War by Sun Tzu, Tolstoy, Garcia Marquez, the complete works of Shakespeare...

   If anything, Hemingway and Steinbeck give us this. They show the human side of battles, the human toll of army campaigns and strategies, the victims and heroes, usually in that order, of how war effects us, the human animal.  The person damaged, the family, the community, the culture changed and marked, injured like the soul of the one as much as the collective identity of our people. Outside of the war commentaries, they both harvest the fertile juices of life in the times of peace as well. Yet, their contributions to the understanding of human conflict in the time of military combat is large. Huge.  They and us as co-inhabitants of the planet would not be the same without it. However, Hemingway and Steinbeck, like Melville and Hawthorne generations before, delve into the human spirit in times of peace. And, as we see through their "peacetime" writings, life is still a hard row to plow. Poverty, hunger, desperation, love and death, belonging; the greater themes of life.

     Hemingway and Steinbeck do this. Of the five, these two are my personal favorites.

    On the home front, Faulkner and Fitzgerald also are able reach the levels of the human spirit and who we are in their literature. Faulkner represents the great American South, which in my case requires a bit more time and maturity, I suppose (I am almost 48!) to fully appreciate as a region and as for his style, on the personal front. I think I will achieve that one of these years, attempted first as a senior in high school back in 1989, back when the South was more my enemy, unrealized in many ways... (I will save that for another blog post). There's some history of wrestle that I have had with the American South, which requires some explanation, and most likely affects my views and tastes with Faulkner. I digressed. Pardon.

   Similarly, Fitzgerald has another sensibility, that of the Northeast, New York, which obviously is a vital place of the American experiment, this new country and land filling its destinies between the old and the new, back to the ancient valleys of Mesopotamia, Harappa, Huang Ho... Combined with our own mostly forgotten Mesoamerica to the south. Like Faulkner, my time for his stories and skills, like my own late mother who requested Fitzgerald's books while in her dynamic later years, his is a flavor of which I am still in need of acquiring.

    The five of them, arguably, are who they say they are, or, who they have been appointed: great narrators of our time. Our-- perhaps the greatest American writers of the century=-- from which I am derived, as well as most of the rest of us.

   So again, earnestly seeking, I seek more in Hemingway. I recognize that which I have not read of his and countless others' ponderings and reflections; I realize I need it. I need to see and somewhat feel what he saw, and felt. I need to see and feel some of that pathos that he evokes.

   Hemingway was earnest, imperfect and fallible. Ernest was a voice to listen to, to ponder. And perhaps, another Midwesterner like myself, a generation or two later (he was my grandparents' age) can further explain the mysteries and designs that elude us, me in life.

   Who am I? What is the United States? Who are we, us humans walking the earth, floating on all sorts of watercraft, perusing creeks and rivers, new banks and streams, lakes and beaches? Who are you? Does Hemingway hold a mirror up to you, to me? To the American continent, to the rest?

This on my Sunday morning. Seeking Hemingway, seeking myself.

    

New Jersey: Realm of the Scarlet Knights

 New Jersey: Realm of the Scarlet Knights

I got to go this past weekend. We had a good time; the hosts were friendly.

New Jersey--through Rutgers--its flagship school, proudly proclaimed itself the birthplace of college football, since 1869. This was posted in stone and banners both inside and outside the stadium.

I felt bad that my Indiana Hoosiers, traditionally not that strong a program in the gridiron, would lay waste to them. They seemed like nice folk.

With some favorable calls and some superior play, my long suffering but current hopeful Hoosiers led at  halftime 24-7.

Things were going as planned.

However, from the very first Hoosier possession in the second half, things did not go as planned.

IU stopped scoring. Luckily, the Knights of Piscataway were only able to score 10 more, so IU held on to a closer win than expected. Less points than I anticipated, especially after 24 in the first half; and many less in point spread than had picked many others, including the Vegas odds makers.

And the oldest program in the country, proudly so, were humbled by my Hoosiers.

The weather was warm, the cannon shots were loud, the music was also loud, which of course included Springstein and Bon Jovey, and the final score:

24-17. Knights went home without the upset.