Month: September 2023

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Rock Doubt

Well, at least we’re not Oakland. 

Small consolation at the best of times, I know. But it’s all I’ve got left to offer. 

If you’re a fellow Colorado Rockies fan, you get it. And if you’re a fellow Colorado Rockies fan, I am so, so sorry. 

One. Hundred. Losses. 

And beyond, naturally. The count stood at 102 when I wrote this and may have added one or two more by the time our final out of the year was recorded on Sunday. But as usual, it’s the big round number that stands out, the mark of infamy that no Rockies team had ever before reached. 

One hundred losses.

We’re not the first team to ever get here, of course. We’re not even the first one this season. The aforementioned Oakland A’s (111 losses at this writing) had a year that almost gave the tragic 1962 Mets a run for their money. Lest anyone forget, that was the year manager Casey Stengel uttered the immortal words “Can’t anybody here play this game?” 

So yeah. We’re not the worst of the worst of the worst.  

Um … yay?

It’s not just the bad season, of course. Everyone gets them eventually. It’s that there have been so many for so long, years where even “mediocre” has seemed like an aspirational goal.  It’s been 16 years since “Rocktober” now. Only four of those have seen winning seasons. The last one – admittedly, one of our best teams since those brief World Series days – was five years ago. 

But even there, it’s not just that it’s happened. It’s how. Get any group of Rockies fans together for longer than ten minutes and you’ll hear the same grumbles. “The owners don’t care. They don’t have to. People keep coming … they could lose every game and still make money.” 

I don’t live in the Monforts’ heads, so I can’t swear to whether that’s true, though I have my theories. (That’s half the fun of being a fan, after all.) But the fact that it’s even credible is toxic. 

After all, it’s a problem that goes beyond baseball. A problem that can be summed up in four words. 

“It’s all about me.” 

It fills the headlines every day. We see it in political showdowns that play poker with people’s lives and well-being. We see it in collisions at every level, where the fears or ambitions of a few can run roughshod over everyone else. During the height of the pandemic, it was an opponent almost as dangerous as the virus itself, when all of us had to remember that our actions affected more than just ourselves.

To be honest, we’re better at that than we give ourselves credit for. Most of us know that we should be looking beyond our own skin, that our neighbors matter. But like a person standing in a doorway, it only takes a few to get in the way of everyone else – not just by what they do or prevent, but by building a feeling of despair that accelerates the cycle. When you start to feel like nothing can be done, you’re less likely to do anything.

Heavy thoughts for something as light as a bad baseball season, I know. But the answer’s the same. Awareness. Hope. Determination. Not to give up, not to wait for things to magically get better, but to act. To remind the self-focused – in the owner’s box or in the nation – that we’re here and we won’t be taken for granted.

Interesting stat – out of all the baseball teams that have lost 100 games, about one in eight had a winning season the next year. Even the “average” mega-loser made their way back to the playoffs in about seven years. Change can happen … once there’s the willingness to do it.

It’s time to play ball. Push hard. And remember, we’re not Oakland.

It’s not much of a battle cry, but it’s a start.   

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A Gentle Light

When I told a friend Roger Whittaker had died, her reaction was not entirely unexpected.

“Who?”

The smooth-voiced baritone occupied one of those interesting musical niches. Depending on where and when you grew up, he was either full-screen or off the radar entirely. He had a fan base of millions that followed him in concert and on TV, but no real celebrity profile. His signature song, “The Last Farewell,” sat virtually unnoticed for four years before abruptly going viral; another piece, “I Am But a Small Voice,” was briefly unavoidable if you were within earshot of a children’s choir.

In short, he had fame without being Famous.

And really, that’s not a bad place to be.

We don’t glamorize that sort of thing, almost by definition. The big dream, after all, is supposed to be what the Muppets once called “The Standard Rich and Famous Contract.” Celebrity with a Capital C, the sort of thing that comes with mansions, awards, screaming fans, gossip writers, obsessed stalkers, nuisance lawsuits, no hint of privacy …

Er, remind me why we want this again?

It’s not wrong, of course. Not entirely. When you look at it closely, the “rich and famous” dream is just an exaggeration of two things we all want very much.

First, we want freedom from worry. The ability to handle crises, needs, even some fun, without it being a stress or a strain.

Second, we want someone to remember us. To think about us kindly. Maybe even to know that something we did had an impact on someone else.

That first part, the freedom from worry, is pretty elusive, to be fair. We’ve all got different lives and situations and they can change with amazing speed. If the pandemic taught us nothing else, it showed us how something as fundamental as health is not a given and how thoroughly its absence can transform a once “normal” life.

But the second part – memory. That’s a little more achievable.

I don’t mean that we’ll all have continents light up at the mention of our name. For some of my more introverted friends, that might even be a nightmare more than a dream. But we all have something we can share, some way to touch a life beyond our own.

For some, it’s music or storytelling. For some, it might be the ability to build or repair or restore. It might even be a simple gift of time, lifting up a neighbor or a stranger, showing them they’re not alone and that someone else cares.

That doesn’t require a limo or a record deal (although I suppose it never hurts). Just the willingness to see beyond your own skin and reach out.

Our lives touch each other all the time, like marbles packed in a jar. We can’t help it.  But what we can do is make that touch matter.

Maybe we won’t set the world ablaze. But frankly, there’s enough burning as it is. If enough of us add a soft light, just where we are, maybe that’s enough.

After all, enough small lights can make a world shine. And the ones who see your light won’t forget it.

So here’s to the Rogers, big and small. Here’s to the ones you labored for, the ones who’ll remember your presence and be better for it.

And when you reach your “Last Farewell,” may the chords you struck linger on.

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Mile-High Hopes?

Sure, I could have written about CU this morning. I didn’t for two reasons: 

1) There doesn’t seem to be a lot of need to. Everyone and their cocker spaniel is writing about the Buffs, Coach Prime and a transformation that’s right up there with Bruce Banner’s. 

2) I’m kind of afraid of jinxing the whole mess. Sure, it’s silly, but after seeing a “Yay, Nuggets” column get followed by the Heat’s only win of the NBA Finals, I am taking no chances. 

So instead, I’m turning my eyes to the Boys in Orange. After all, there’s only so much harm I can do there, right? 

If you felt a wind gust through the Front Range last week, it might have been the WHOOSH of deflated expectations from a horde of Bronco fans. After all, on the surface, we got a new coach, a new season and the same result: a 17-16 loss to open the campaign, just like 2022. 

It’s been hard to take, especially for the parts of the fandom that can remember the Broncos being at least a playoff threat for 30 years and then again in the Peyton Manning years. There’s history here. But ever since The Sheriff walked off the field, that history has been … well, history. 

That said, I have to admit something. Sure, I gritted my teeth through that Raiders game, too. But I still left with something that sorta, kinda, maybe, if-you-squint-real-hard, looks like hope. 

No, I don’t need the concussion protocol. 

The opening game came down to two big things: dumb penalties and a bad extra point. Both of these are correctable. More to the point, it did NOT come down to a disappointing day from Russell Wilson, who finally started to look like the quarterback we expected to see in 2022. I’ll emphasize the word “started,” especially since he didn’t exactly pour on the yardage in the second half.  But I’ll take a sharp completion percentage, two touchdown passes and – most importantly – no interceptions as a starting point. 

By the time this appears in print, Game 2 will have played and I’ll look like either a genius or an idiot. So it goes. But I’ll stand by this: for the first time in a while, it feels like there’s potential here. 

Yes, that’s a dangerous word. As Linus from “Peanuts” once put it, “There’s no heavier burden than a great potential.” And when we’ve been burned so many times – OK, when we’ve burned OURSELVES so many times – it can feel instead like Charlie Brown rushing up to try kicking the football yet again. 

I’ll be honest: I do not expect the playoffs this year. But I do expect better. As long as we have a coach that’s willing to work, able to work and given a chance to work. (That last has not exactly been a guarantee with the revolving door Denver has seen in the last few years.) 

That’s where anything worth doing starts. With the willingness and the opportunity to try. 

As I’ve said and quoted before, hope isn’t optimism. It’s optimism plus sweat. If you believe that better is possible, you have to show that belief by committing to it. That’s true whether you’re talking about a sport, a job, even a country. 

That doesn’t mean being blind about faults and weaknesses: “My team/party/country right or wrong.” But if you can set your sights higher than where you are and put in the effort to travel that path, then even a failure can make you stronger. Even a stumble can be forward motion. 

We may have a lot of stumbles ahead. But if we keep them in the right direction, we’ll get there. Jinx or no jinx. 

After all, we’ve seen what can happen when a team hits its Prime.

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Pouring Down, Rising Above

The rain just wouldn’t stop. 

When I lived in Kansas, I learned what that meant. Hard thunderstorms could make a mess. But steady, unceasing rain could be worse. When water has time to gather its strength, it transforms everything around it. Roads become rivers, concrete dividers become popcorn, lives become changed. 

I thought I knew that lesson. 

Ten years ago, I learned how little I knew. 

If you were here in September 2013, you know what I mean. If you weren’t, I’m not sure I can ever explain it properly. That handful of days belongs to another world, one where events flowed as ceaselessly as the St. Vrain and sleep was a rare and precious commodity. A world transformed. 

Longmont became a city divided. Lyons became an island chain. Missouri Avenue turned into the “Missouri river” as the water rose. Hover Street became impassible, though that didn’t stop some from sloshing their way across on foot anyway, struggling from south to north as emergency workers yelled at them to turn back. 

We held on as the water did its work. 

And even after the waters fell, we weren’t quite the same.

I don’t just mean the physical damage, though rebuilding from that became a years-long effort. Passing through the flood changes people. You don’t just let go of what happened, even if your home and family were well out of the floodway.

A few months later, when the spring rains began, I think most of us paused for just a moment. I remember watching the runoff pool and flow in a gutter near Longmont High School, unable to look away as my mind went back to higher waters and faster flows. 

Call it a reflex. A readiness. A ghost.

But we also carried away something else. We learned that we truly had neighbors. 

It’s easy to forget sometimes. Easy to ignore the lives that pass so near our own or even to clash with them. We divide, separate, watch the world with wary eyes.

But the good stuff never went away. Neighbors still exist. And when the waters rose, we found each other, reached out and helped. 

Even the St. Vrain couldn’t separate that.

It shouldn’t take a flood. Or a blizzard, or a wildfire, or any of the other traumatic moments that throw us into each other’s lives. But then, those are the moments that boil down all the choices and throw everything into stark relief. Where it’s clear that we either stand together or else we might not stand at all.

And so we reach for snow shovels. Or sandbags. Or masks.  One way or another, we reach for a neighbor’s hand and make each other stronger.

The world does its worst. And we rediscover our best.

And each time, I hope the discovery will last a little longer. It’s too important to rise and fall like a passing creek, full past bursting in a crisis and parched to the point of drought otherwise.

I said it at the beginning: sudden storms come and go, but steady effort transforms. That’s true of more than just rain. If we keep that sort of steady focus on each other, that daily commitment to our neighbors, we can reshape our world.

We just need to gather our strength. And not let up.

Long may we rain.

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Below the Surface

J.R.R. Tolkien died 50 years ago today. It doesn’t seem to have slowed him down much.

Among fantasy fans, there’s a joke that you could rediscover Tolkien’s old laundry list and send it to the top of the bestseller charts. Look him up on Amazon (I’ll wait) and you’ll see the avalanche of material that appeared after 1973. Epics. Poems. Letters. Volume upon volume of backstory, fictional history and alternative drafts.

It’s awe-inspiring. Even a little intimidating. Many of us have hidden depths. The Professor had entire underground cities.

But then, he always did. And that should be encouraging to most of us.

I suspect a lot of us have stories we’ve never told, gifts we’ve never explored, ideas we haven’t shared. And the longer they stay hidden, the easier it is to get self-conscious about them. “It’s too different.” “No one wants to hear this.” “Eh, I’ve waited too long.”

And so the guitar gathers dust. The paints dry out. The words stay off the page. And the underground cavern stays sealed.

Maybe it’s time to do a little excavation.

Waited too long? Tolkien was 45 when he published “The Hobbit” and 62 when “The Lord of the Rings” came out.

Too different? The Professor not only re-introduced epic fantasy to the world but subverted it as well. He took the classic heroic archetype – the lost heir to the throne, raised in secret by elves, sent out with the sword of his fathers to save his people – and made him a supporting character. The real heroes were the people looking to throw away power, and “happily ever after” still ended with a changed and diminished world and a protagonist who’d been forever scarred by his experiences.

No one wants to hear this? For a long time, Tolkien considered Middle-Earth his private hobby, and an unusual one for an Oxford professor at that. He almost didn’t publish “The Hobbit” at all; once it was out the door, he had doubts about whether it would be reprinted. These days … well, remember that Amazon avalanche?

Knock a hole in the right cavern and you just might find hidden treasure.

But here’s the thing. It’s not about whether the gift you have shakes the world. It’s about whether you let it out at all.

Because even if it never changes the world, it will change you. And that matters.

Give yourself permission to try. To be curious. To explore. Whether you’re fascinated by tinkering, or languages, or strange-looking rocks on the side of a hiking trail, it’s a fire that’s worth lighting.

In a society that’s often driven to pursue success, it’s ok to do things for the pleasure of doing them. If other things grow from that, wonderful. But whether they do or not, you’re growing from it. And if it’s building your joy … well, maybe that’s touching the world after all.

I wish you luck in exploring the hidden depths. Meanwhile, I’ve got some spelunking to do of my own. In the words of a certain Professor:

“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way ….”

If I find any Elvish laundry lists, I’ll be sure to let you know.