Month: April 2014

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Icing the Thugs

First things first. I get that hockey is a rough sport.

I mean, it’s not exactly a secret, is it? My sisters and I first started watching the NHL because of the fights. I think many fans started the same way. To this day, I describe the sport to people as “soccer with weapons, armor and bad terrain.”

So yeah. Nobody’s mistaking this for a tiddlywink arena.

But even so, there’s rough and there’s wrong. And this time around, the Minnesota Wild are on the wrong side.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, welcome back to Colorado and I hope your vacation was nice. Because if you were anywhere within shouting distance — and I use the phrase deliberately — of the Front Range this week, you already know far more about the laming of the Colorado Avalanche’s Tyson Barrie than you ever wanted to know.

The uproar was huge when the Wild’s Matt Cooke slammed his knee into Barrie’s, taking Barrie out of the playoffs with a ligament injury. It was only slightly less muted when the league agreed that, yes, the hit had been improper, and announced Cooke’s punishment.

Seven games.

Yes, seven.

Mind you, that’s better than nothing at all. And there’s a good chance those games will be served next season, because, honestly, the Wild looked like they were already on their way out of the playoffs before they turned the Avs into the Big Red Rage Machine. But still — seven games?

That’s … what’s the word I want? Oh, yes. Pitiful.

Now, my friends from New England may think I’m throwing stones in a glass house here. After all, the Broncos reached the Super Bowl after a “pick play” wound up knocking Patriot defender Aqib Talib out of the game. But I do think there’s a distinction, and not just because we paid our penance by being nationally embarrassed and then signing the player we injured.

I believed then and I believe now that the injury on that play was accidental. (Not least because a receiver like Wes Welker isn’t built for the bully-boy game.) If I thought otherwise, I’d want Welker out on his ear. Leave the bounty hunting to Boba Fett and “Dog” Chapman and let everyone else play football.

Coming back to the ice, most folks agree that Cooke’s shot was no accident. Cooke has a record as a thug. Sure, he’s renounced that past, but that’s taken about as seriously as weather forecasts, political promises and guarantees that this year, the Cubs will win it all. If you saw someone weaving on the road who had seven previous DUIs, your first conclusion would not be that the car’s frame has a bad alignment.

How do you get a hardcase to take this seriously? By upping the ante. One fan on Facebook had the ideal answer: suspend him for as long as the injury lasts.

Four weeks to heal? Four week suspension.

Six weeks on the disabled list? Six weeks on the you-know-what list.

Never able to return? Have fun asking if you want fries with that.

Granted, you have to be able to show intent. But that’s already the case anyway. And unless the disparity in talent is huge, most teams have little to gain from “milking” the injury to keep another player off the ice. After all, you’ll only play that opponent a handful of times a year, but losing your own player affects your team every day.

There’s plenty of room for rough. There’s no room for foul.

Think about it, NHL.

This isn’t just a want. It’s a kneed.

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Seeing the Invisible

The bundled figure on the North Carolina park bench could have been any homeless man, curled up and trying to sleep. Well, except for two things.

First, the figure was made of metal.

Second, it had visible nail prints in its bare feet.

That’s right. The bench was being occupied by Homeless Jesus.

The sculpture, “Jesus the Homeless” by sculptor Timothy Schmalz, was made for St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, N.C. And it’s caused a bit of a commotion. According to NPR, a number of people have praised it (including the current Pope) while others have condemned it for bringing down the neighborhood, or just for depicting their Saviour as … well, a bum.

Me? Every time I’ve seen the statue surface on Facebook — which it has, many, many times — I’ve smiled. And my own personal faith is only part of the reason.

Oh, if this were a Sunday School class, I’d go into detail about Jesus’s admonition to serve him by serving “the least of these.” And I’d probably add a side order of Paul’s warning that in caring for a stranger, we may entertain angels without knowing it. But since I have a more ecumenical readership here, I’ll go to something a bit more basic.

Put bluntly, it’s an uncomfortable image. And I like that.

It forces us to see the unseeable.

We don’t like doing that. I know I don’t. There’s certain topics we instinctively avoid in conversation, certain sights we often turn away from. The ones that make us feel helpless. Or afraid. Or just strike too close to home.

It’s little kid logic. If we don’t see it, it’s not there.

In school, it’s easier not to notice the bully. Then he won’t beat us up. Right?

As adults, it’s easier not to talk about death. Then we won’t die. Right?

And at almost every stage of life, it’s easier not to notice the hurting, the poor, the afflicted. To look past the people who have nothing left except their presence. Then we don’t have to feel the mix of fear (what will he do?), embarrassment (did she notice me staring?), guilt (did I just think that?) and discomfort that’s bound to arise.

Especially the last. Because that’s the part that says all the disurbing things: “This shouldn’t be. Why is it? Why doesn’t someone do something?”

And then of course, the even less comfortable sequel: “I’m someone.”

If we don’t see it, it’s not there. But what we can’t ignore, we have to address.

That’s a huge prospect. Terrifying, even.

But is it as frightening as a people that would rather have the uncomfortable stay invisible?

I don’t know what the answers are. But I do know they won’t be reached by ignoring the questions. And so, I offer my thanks to St. Alban’s, to Mr. Schmalz and to everyone else involved for forcing the spotlight to where it doesn’t always want to go.

After all, consider the subject. There are stories of Jesus healing, teaching, lifting up, reaching out. I don’t remember any of him carefully looking the other way while walking past a leper.

He looked. He saw.

Shouldn’t we?

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Goodbye, Dude

The Dude abides no more.

Picture a small bird. No, smaller than that. A zebra finch, about the size of your thumb, lively with song, gray with age and deaf as a post.

That was The Dude. Yes, was.

I found him in the cage Wednesday night. Just five hours earlier, he’d been his usual self, hopping and flittering and singing that unique burble that only a finch possesses, somewhere between a running faucet and a squeaky toy.

He wasn’t gone yet. Not quite. But he was clearly on the threshold, his small body curled in the corner, barely moving, barely breathing.

Heather couldn’t stand for him to be alone in the dark. We brought his cage to our bedroom and sat up with him. We promised if he was still lingering in the morning, we’d go to the vet and do the gentle thing.

It wasn’t necessary. In the wee hours, he turned once on the bottom of his case, just enough to notice. And then he made the final flight, the one without wings.

Nine years had come to a quiet end.

If you’ve not kept birds, you may not realize how uncommon that is. Most zebra finches last between five and seven years as pets. There have been older ones, sure, but even if The Dude wasn’t quite George Burns, he was sure as heck Christopher Plummer.

Maybe a bit of Harrison Ford, too. After all, he did get a ride in the mouth of Big Dog Blake and lived to tell the tale.

Amazing, in a lot of ways.

But then, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. If there are two things that our families do well, it’s birds and long-lived pets.

The birds come from Heather’s side. She and her sister Jaimee are the Bird Ladies, embracing anything in feathers. Before The Dude’s passing, our informal aviary comprised three parakeets, two zebra finches, one society finch and a cockatiel whose shrieks could wake Rip Van Winkle. No partridges in pear trees, but I’m sure it’s a matter of time.

The pets that won’t quit, meanwhile, are a hardy Rochat family tradition. Growing up, I had a dog that made it to 13, a cat that made it to 17 — heck, I had a goldfish that lasted around 13 years. It didn’t happen with every pet, every time, but it was strong enough to make a trend.

Put ’em together, and you get a heck of a flock.

And also one where it’s really hard to say goodbye.

It’s human to assume that what has been always will be. That only gets stronger when a gentle soul does indeed keep going day after day and year after year. Maybe they’re a little slower or a touch more careful over time, but they’re still there. Still wonderful. Still loving.

And then, one day, that love leaves.

And so does a little of you.

I wouldn’t trade the time for anything. No way. But deep roots pull harder when they’re finally torn free. Even the smallest of bodies — a finch, a gerbil, a horned toad — can leave a hole the size of the Grand Canyon.

The hole will be filled, with memories and tears. But it never will be what it was before. Neither will you.

And on balance, I think that’s a good thing.

I am a better person than I would have been without Mitzi the dog, Twinkle the cat, and a host of others, right down to the tiniest Dude. And I know I’m not alone in that feeling. There’s a care that only animals can teach, as they magnify the best and worst you choose to show them.

And if it hurts to leave, you probably did it right. It’s a hard comfort. But it’s also an assurance that you touched a heart to a heart and brought both back full.

That’s a treasure beyond words. And as I think on that, I realize that I got the first sentence of this piece wrong.

Down where it counts, The Dude abides.

And he always will.

 

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A Memory of Water

The surging water quickly filled the gutter, cascading down the nearby grating in ripples and bubbles.

I watched in the dark, hypnotized for a few seconds.

Part of it, in all honesty, was probably fatigue. Normal people sleep at 1 o’clock in the morning. Even crazy ones will sleep at 1 a.m. when it’s snowing outside. But as a reporter, I’m a special breed of crazy, so I was out in the snow showers, trying to get a halfway-decent picture that could run on our website come morning.

But lack of sleep only goes so far, especially for a night owl. The larger part of my mind, the part that couldn’t look away, was hearing an echo. One that was six months old.

A memory of a river that would not stop rising.

***

I doubt I’m alone here, either in my reflex or in my embarrassment at it.

I mean, water is the treasure of the West. It’s what starts small towns and big fights. It’s the heart of everything we do in Colorado, from farms to breweries to ski lodges.

What’s more, I love water from the sky. I glory in rainstorms (especially since their arrival means my early-warning pressure headaches can go away). And snow has been a special treat for me since childhood, a chance to see the world transformed and the California drivers at a loss.

It’s beautiful. Marvelous. Powerful.

And last September, we all got a reminder of the other side of that power.

I was one of the lucky ones. The flood didn’t reach my home, didn’t harm my family, didn’t turn my life upside down. Even so, I still have memories from the first day, reporting from the south side of Longmont and not sure how I was going to get back to the north.

I remember the “Missouri river” created when Left Hand Creek emptied into the nearby street. And the sea that had been Boston Avenue, stranding those who lingered even a moment. I can still see water slowly filling neighborhoods or quickly roaring under bridges or ripping away railway beds. And I doubt I’ll ever forget the sight of people walking across a flooded-out Hover Street, desperate for any way to get back home.

That’s from someone for whom the flood was a job. How much stronger still for those whose lives passed through the current?

And no one emerges from a trauma unmarked.

It’s like having a death in the family: the smallest things will trigger the most powerful memories. And so we sometimes wince to see gray clouds in the sky, or to hear rain on the roof, or to even think of what spring’s runoff may bring down the St. Vrain’s channel.

It’s a natural reflex. And not an entirely bad one.

When a relative passes, the unexpected memories help preserve a loving tie even beyond death. When a flood passes, the memories can keep us alert and watchful — a useful thing, so long as it doesn’t degrade into a fear and panic that paralyzes instead of primes.

We know what can happen now. We can be ready. Even if we don’t anticipate everything, we can prepare for enough.

And someday, down the road, we’ll be able to hear the rumble of thunder without anxiety.

Maybe not yet. Maybe not now. But someday, when watchfulness has built security, the time will come.

Until then, all we can do is navigate as best we can among a flood of memories.