I Don't Know From a Double Dribble, But I Do Know an En Passant

My favourite sport is none.  I have never had a great deal of athletic prowess and therefore never enjoyed playing many sports; when you couple that with not being a preferred choice when teams were being picked my flippant attitude toward sport is easier to understand.  I did give organized sports a few tries, baseball and football, they just never were my thing.  The only positive that sport ever brought into my early life was that basketball introduced me to chess.   

It was 6th grade in St. Mary’s Catholic School in Oklahoma, when that change started that took recess from being a free form playtime into a formally structured gym class.    It was when I suddenly found myself on a basketball court, with no formal education in the hoop arts, holding a just passed basketball, and being yelled at take a shot.  Somehow, I was supposed to know all the rules as well as how to dribble, pass, and shoot -- I took the shot and it bounced off the rim.  There were two guys in class (Sully and Brian) who had older brothers and fathers who had been preparing them for a life in the pros.  If memory serves, they were not any better than anyone else; but their knowledge of the game made them the leaders in this arena and as a result they got more play time every day and that did improve their skills.

I did not have a basketball hoop at home, so the sum total of my playtime was lunch recess during the week when I would be passed the ball, at most, once a day.  When I did get control of the ball, I would either be called for traveling, until I found out what dribbling was, or I would take a solitary shot at the basket. Those 3 or 4 throws a week were insufficient practice to ever show any improvement at the game and so I spent my lunch hours just filling in the court so that the two “experts” could feel good about themselves.  Given my internal need to excel this was totally unsatisfying.

Then one day a friend brought in a travel chess set and invited me to play during lunch.  This was 1971 and there was growing interest in the game as a lead up to the Fischer - Spassky World Championship Match.  My friend, whose name escapes me now, taught me the basics of the game and from that point until the end of the school year, we would play daily at lunch and through practice I got more skillful and learned to enjoy the game.  Eventually, I taught my kids how to play and I even play the occasional game of Star Trek Three-Dimensional Chess.

Now, I have grandsons who have started to learn and play basketball in a formal setting and are being taught the game’s rules as part of it.  They seem to like it and that is great for them and the exercise will do them good.  But at some point, they may want a more cerebral challenge, and that is when Grandpa will teach them to play chess.

MacBeth plays a pretty mean defense, but I doubt he will ever understand the nuance of a perfectly executed and timed Castle move.

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Kinda Like Running Into a Burning Building -- Well, Someone Has To

When I was a kid I admired the courage of firefighters as they ran into burning buildings as all the sane people ran out.  As I grew up, I learned that the firefighters were trained and equipped to run into that building, and even though what they were doing was still very brave and heroic they had an edge.   When my leave was over  and I started my return to Kuwait, I felt a little of what firefighters feel running into that burning building --  but I take faith in the fact that I have been trained and equipped to handle it.

It may seem like the entire Middle East is exploding in the past week, but Kuwait remains peaceful.  There was a demonstration at the American Embassy here but it was not violent.  Still, I am thankful that when I chose my housing I chose based on proximity to the base rather than one of the nicer neighborhoods near the Embassy.  My neighborhood is predominantly Indian and therefore not seen as an American enclave.  The bottom line:  I am safe and doing fine.

 

I have not seen the film that supposedly caused this upheaval, but I do support the First Amendment that allows all speech, even speech I do not agree with, to be free.  I did find it interesting that the White House condemned the film but has never seen fit to say anything about anti-Christian films, like the one produced a few years ago by Bill Maher.  I don't recall anyone attacking Maher or the company that produced that film. 

Final note on this:  When I flew back into Kuwait City Friday night, my Kuwaiti cab driver apologized for his fellow Muslims letting me know that not all of them were violent or angry towards Americans.  I thanked him for that, and he added "All peoples have those among them who use any excuse to be destructive.  We can only hope that they only hurt themselves in the end."  Very astute observation.  The Editor-in-Chief of Kuwait Times had thoughts along the same lines in his column Benefitting From Animosity.

Interesting things I saw while on leave in the US:

I saw at least 3 mullets.  So a few folks have their Way Back Machine set to 1980.

A car that had a broken side view mirror and to fix it they took an interior rear view mirror and duct taped it to what was left of the mount.  Gotta admire the creativity.

When I called my grandson Dude,  he informed that he is not Dude -- that is not his name.

Salad portion control.  Anyone else notice that side salads are getting bigger?  Maybe it has just been too long since I ate inside a restaurant.

Waitresses in the South still pronounce "Honey" with a "u" and 3 "n"s; and even though it may be sexist,  I am not gonna tell some 65 year old woman she shouldn't be calling me Hunnny.

MacBeth is still a great dog.

Speaking of being safe,  take note of my new bathtub orniments - I go to see the Doc tomorrow to make sure I am healing okay.

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