On the Flip Side

The day after the All-Star Game, it felt like I had entered Bizarro World. 

Even if you’re not a certified geek like me (nobody’s perfect), you’ve probably heard of Bizarro World, the Superman setting where everything is ridiculously reversed. Bizarro World’s residents put curtains outside their windows. Their greatest celebrities are hideously ugly. And of course their Superman equivalent, the clumsy and Frankenstein-ish Bizarro himself, gains power from Green Kryptonite and has a penetrating gaze that can ONLY see through lead. 

So when our own Elias Díaz became the All-Star MVP with a game-winning home run – the first  of the Rockies ever to win the honor – the fan reaction would have made Bizarro feel right at home. 

“Well, it’s been nice knowing him.”

“Yeah, he ought to get traded any day now.” 

Mind you, I get it. It’s been a long, long, LONG time since the glory days of Rocktober in 2007. The current ownership has pretty much dedicated itself to the pursuit of mediocrity … and then not even taken the steps to secure that. Stars get cut or traded before they become expensive, endless streaks of losing are tolerated as long as Coors Field keeps filling up and a .500 record is treated as aspirational to the point of being unrealistic. 

Rebuilding years get bad, I know. But this isn’t rebuilding. This is marking time. To steal a quip from Abraham Lincoln, if the Monforts don’t want to use the Rockies, would they mind letting someone else borrow them for a while? 

But while they’re dithering, let’s not let them steal our joy. However brief it may prove. 

I have a little experience there. 

If you’re a regular reader here, you know that my wife Heather has just a few medical issues. Which is kind of like saying that Hollywood has just a few people on strike right now. We’re talking good stuff like Crohn’s disease. Or MS. Or ankylosing spondylitis. And often, some special guest star that we struggle to identify at all. 

Draining? Yes. Discouraging? Sure. There have been a lot of grinding days where we’ve both felt like we’re walking to the North Pole while trying to drag Pike’s Peak with us. The next moment can never really be counted on and every plan has a just-in-case contingency. 

But here’s the thing. It’s not unrelieved gray. Somehow, some way, sunlight does sneak in. And we’ve learned to treasure it for however long it lasts. 

It might be laughter at a silly joke or horrid pun. Or a “what the heck?” moment in the Chinese action melodramas Heather loves. It could be a moment of peace in the mountains or a cheer from Missy at getting to help us wash dishes. (Yes, our Missy celebrates dish washing – I told you this was Bizarro World.)

Whatever the form it takes, joy finds a way in. And when that happens, there’s nothing wrong with holding it if you can.

It’s not easy, I know. On a grand scale, it sometimes even sounds a little frivolous. “How can you enjoy (x) when (y) is going on?” But the mind can attend to a number of different things.  And while I never want to be the one fiddling while Rome burns to the ground, I also don’t want to be a grim soul who’s closed himself off to anything but pain.

So yes. Celebrate the good when it comes, however small it might be. Touch the joy. Feel the now, no matter what tomorrow holds.

And if someday it holds a change of ownership for the Colorado Rockies, maybe we can all rejoice a little more.

Bizarro? Maybe. But you’ve got to start somewhere.

A Healthy Respect

When you think about it, we don’t ask for that much from our presidential candidates. Just the agelessness of Superman or Wonder Woman. The steel-clad sweat glands of the Terminator. And maybe the all-around athleticism of Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man.

Simple, really.

As you may have gathered from the most recent news cycles, though, we don’t exactly have the Clark Kent candidacy yet. On one side of the aisle, Hillary Clinton’s attempt to continue her campaign through a case of pneumonia drew alarmed coverage from journalists across the country. But there was plenty of criticism left for her opponent Donald Trump as he openly hesitated about releasing his own recent medical information, before eventually presenting the results of his latest physical on-air to Dr. Oz.

Now, on one level, I get it. The presidency is a highly stressful, demanding job. When you look at the before-and-after pictures, our typical Leader of the Free World looks like they’ve aged about 20 years overnight. And when both candidates are among the oldest to ever run for the position, it can be important to know whether they’re one good White House dinner away from saying “Your turn, Mr. Vice President.”

But I’m also not too surprised that a candidate would hold that information back. Or a president, for that matter. In a way, we all but demand it.

Simply put, we don’t do sickness very well.

The Christian writer Max Lucado once noted that if you ever want to stop a conversation cold, ask someone what they think about their impending death. We don’t want reminders. Not as a species. Not as a country. Entire industries are built on the premise that a person can always be young, beautiful, and healthy, a movie star on Main Street.

Illness? Worthy of sympathy, of course. But please, have the decency to get better soon so we can go back to our fantasy. As I’ve mentioned before, even the best-intentioned friend can begin to suffer “compassion fatigue” when continually exposed to the reality of a long-term physical condition.

So we build up an ideal. And to meet that ideal, our presidents lie.

It’s not a new thing, born of reality TV and the celebrity presidency. Franklin Roosevelt concealed the extent of his polio, attempting to “walk” with braces in public and never letting his wheelchair be photographed. Jack Kennedy publicly played rough-and-tumble football games with his brothers to hide his difficulties with back pain and Addison’s disease. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke that basically incapacitated him for the last year and a half of his presidency; the public was told he was suffering “nervous exhaustion.”

Never let ‘em see you suffer. Keep up the face at all costs.

Sometimes, of course, the face slips – and oh, boy, do we react. The elder George Bush famously tried to attend a state dinner despite an illness, and was roundly ridiculed when he threw up on the lap of the Japanese prime minister as a result. Even lesser reminders of physical imperfection become the stuff of late-night comedy – when Gerald Ford, a former college athlete, began suffering an extended attack of the clumsies, it pretty much launched the career of Chevy Chase.

And each moment with derision, we remind our presidential aspirants to build that wall a little higher.

I’m not saying presidential candidates should be dishonest. At this level, the information often needs to be out there. But some of the burden is on us, too. We need to be able to react without hysteria, without mockery, and with as much common sense and calm judgment as we can bring to the table. (A little sympathy might not hurt, either.)

Trying to pretend an illness isn’t there can make things worse. We all know that. But if we insist on the mask, we’ll get it.

And I guarantee, it won’t be hiding a superhero.