Random thoughts...

"Anybody out there happen to know in what fire
we experienced the greatest loss of life in US history?
Yes: the great Chicago fire.
It started when a cow kicked over a lantern.
And nobody claimed back then that the cow was upset over global warming."

:: Rush Limbaugh,
Show on 25 Oct 2007

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."

:: G. K. Chesterton
found on littlegreenfootballs.com

Keep in your prayers...

Sally, Ellen's oldest sister, her husband Jeff, and their family, haven't had the best of times since they moved out west. She's had some medical concerns, which has hampered her ability to land good employment. Jeff is following a calling into the acting field, so until George Lucas finds him in his latest carpentry gig (ala Harrison Ford), he's not raking in the multi-million dollar deals just quite yet.

Oh, yes, they live in Santa Clarita, CA, just north of Los Angeles. The LA Times' website has a great interactive map of the recent firestorms here. Santa Clarita is the town with four wildfires surrounding it. Some are contained, some aren't.

Needless to say, they'll take all the prayer help they can get. Please keep them in yours.

Commentary on Walt Jockety -- This is a great compliment...

Read this guest commentary as I was perusing the website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, www.stltoday.com. As I was reading it, I couldn't help but tell myself -- this is a great sort of goal to aim for, and achieve.

Of course, Jocketty was with the Cardinals. The same class outfit that gave us Stan Musial (who keeps giving and giving to Cardinal nation. And Schoendist, and Smith, and Pujols... So it shouldn't surprise me too much.

Enough intro. If it's still on the stltoday.com website, it'll be here. Otherwise, it's below.
-----

Reaching out to ordinary fans

By Paul Turner

10/08/2007

CHICAGO

Last week, my brother-in-law called at the steakhouse where I work on Wednesdays to tell me the Cardinals had fired general manager Walt Jocketty. I was stunned. Team chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and president Mark Lamping had kicked to the curb the person most responsible for assembling the talent for one of the most successful eras in St. Louis baseball history. I thought it was a slap in the face to a man who deserved better treatment.

Jocketty's record speaks for itself. Let the baseball experts, columnists and fans in the sports pages, blogs and chat rooms ruminate on it. Yes, I mourn Jocketty's firing for on-field reasons, but I regret more deeply the loss of someone I thought was not only a tremendous baseball man, but also a tremendous man, period.

I'm a native of southern Illinois who lives in Chicago and, who, thankfully, has retained my passion for the Cardinals. Like many others pursuing careers in acting and writing, I have supplemented my income for years by working in restaurants.

Over the last decade or so, I happen to have worked in places frequented by members of the Cardinals organization. That has allowed me to serve and talk to and get to know people I worshipped as a child. I mean, listening to Mike Shannon, Red Schoendist and long-time Cardinals traveling secretary C.J. Cherre tell baseball stories and getting paid for it? On days when the Redbirds have been in town, I've sometimes felt as though I were attending a kind of baseball fantasy camp.

These people have indulged my questions and love of the team, but no one ever has asked to be seated in my section more times than Walt Jocketty — even though he had to know I was going to talk his arm off.

I don't know about the reported behind-the-scenes divisiveness in the Cardinals front office, but I do know what I've experienced personally: Walt Jocketty is one of the most decent and classiest people I've ever encountered.

At the restaurant few years ago, Jocketty asked me if was planning to come down to St. Louis anytime soon and invited me to be his guest for a game at Busch II. I casually mentioned that my next trip to St. Louis was going to be for an extended-family reunion in conjunction with a particular baseball game, so I'd have to take him up on his offer some other time. He said he'd call me anyway.

No big deal, right? It would be easy enough for him to leave me a couple of tickets.

Not long afterward, a package arrived from him in the mail: 12 tickets to a private suite and six more tickets behind home plate, four rows up. He had given me the use of his family's luxury box, the whole thing, for a night. It was a night the members of my family will remember for the rest of our lives.

Who does that kind of a thing for a guy he knows only casually, a guy who waited on him in a restaurant maybe a dozen times? And who does that while trying to run a baseball team in the middle of a pennant race? The same person who was dumped unceremoniously last week by his employer: "Thanks for the nice run, Walt. There's the door."

I'll continue to be a Cardinals fan. I can't help it. It's in my blood. But with $6 beer, legal in-house ticket scalping, the radio fiasco and that shop behind the bleachers that sells used game balls and bases at outrageous prices, I've started wondering how much the current ownership group considers its average fan base.

Right now, I'm thinking about this extremely nice guy who worked for the team until last week, someone who showed kindness and consideration to ordinary people who love those birds-on-the-bat. He was incredibly successful, too — maybe the best at his job in the business. And he was a really good tipper.

Thanks for all of it, Walt.

Paul Turner is an actor and writer who lives in Chicago. He was born in Cairo, Ill., and immediately was whisked off to St. Louis as a medical precaution. He has returned to the city as often as possible ever since.

Article is (c) 2007, by www.stltoday.com, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, L.L.C. All rights reserved, and used by permission.

Sorry, I've been away for a while...

Well, most of the dust has settled from our antics on Friday the 12th. I'll try and touch on it a little later. A few things to clear off the deck before I get to that, I'll try to get them up as I can today. So expect a few posts today.

I HATE FRIDAYS!!!

Here's how today's went.

7:38 a.m. :: Left our home in the van with Mackenzie (to go to school), Zachary and Madelynne (to go to my parent's house for the morning while I went to work.) Typical Friday, except now that it's gotten cool (but if you ask anyone else in the house, it's downright cold.)

7:50 a.m. :: Stop by a gas station, put $7 worth of gas in the van. I usually don't do that when I start to run tight on time, but since the van was telling me it only had 6 miles worth of fuel left, I figured it'd be better to get enough gas in the van to get through the morning rounds. Back on William St., heading smartly to school.

7:52 a.m. :: Getting ready to turn off of William and on to Pacific -- about 3/4 mile away from the school. Then, I get a panicked call from Ellen on my cell phone - she's been in an accident. She's ok, but it sounds like the car's hurt bad.

7:53 a.m. :: Call my parents, arrange to drop off Zach and Madelynne a little faster than usual.

7:54 a.m. :: Mackenzie's at school. Heading over to my parents.

8:02 a.m. :: Other two at my parents. Head to the accident scene.

8:07 a.m. :: Get to the accident scene -- the on-ramp/off-ramp intersection of I-55 at William St. The car's hurt bad. (pictures to follow). Ellen's ok. She tells me her side of the story, and it sounds like the other person blazed through a red light going 45 mph (the speed limit), and did a number on our car's front end. 9 year old car, 114k miles. Not looking good.

8:30 a.m. :: The two drivers talk to the officer. Apparently there's a discrepancy in the stories. The apparent difference in views as to how our car got sent via wrecker (appropriately named in this instance) and her car got slightly bent doesn't sit will with she-who-must-be-obeyed. We leave in the van.

9:45 a.m. :: I go to take a look at the car. Not pretty. Call my dad, he joins me at the dealership with a camera. We take several pictures. I clean out the car, fully expecting not to see it again. After talking with several trusted friends, I decide to take Ellen to the doctor to get checked out. Now that the adrenaline is ebbing and nerves are settling down, stressed and strained muscles will start to ache.

10:08 a.m. :: Call the doctor's office to make the appointment. Come to find out that despite the fact that Ellen's been a patient of their's for the past 7 years, and myself for the past 14, they handle accident check-outs as new-patient visits. Meaning that I need to shell out $200 up front and in advance before the visit. I'm not too happy, but what am I going to do now. I make the appointment for 1 p.m.

11:30 a.m. :: Grabbed lunch, the first meal of my day. A glass of juice, and five rolled tacos. And the rest of Ellen's sweet potato pie. The jice and tacos were ok, but the pie takes the cake. Ellen needs to make this more often...

12 noon :: Go to pick up kids, grab lunch, get money for drs. visit.

12:45 p.m. :: Start to head over to the doctor's office. Heading east on William, over the interstate, heading past Popeye's, and coming up on Panera at the corner of William @ Mt. Auburn.

A bit of explanation here. Eastbound William St. at Mt. Auburn breaks into 5 lanes. Going from left to right, there's two lanes that turn left (northbound), two lanes that head straight, and one lane that is a "right turn only" lane that breaks into a yield ramp onto southbound Mt. Auburn. Right now, again going left to right, the first turn lane only has 1 car in it, the second turn lane is completely full (about 5-7 cars), and the rest of the turn lanes are empty, since they all have green lights. I'm wanting to turn left, so I bear to the left to become the second car in that first turn lane. I'm driving about 40-45 mph (speed limit again is about 45.)

Out of the entry/exit of Panera comes a SUV, cutting across all the lanes, and it looks like they're going into the full turn lane. Then they turn a bit further...

I swerve, barely missing the SUV. Barely means that we swapped paint.

12:54 p.m. :: Cops are called to the scene of our SECOND accident of the day. Fortunately, this lady said that it was her fault. No debate here. Best part about this was that after hearing about Ellen's ordeals in the morning, the ladies gather for a little "Oprah" session. In a turn lane, in the middle of the busiest road of the town. It does Ellen well, though, and lets her unload. You never know exactly where God's gifts'll turn up.


1:15 p.m. :: While waiting for the CGPD to show up, I call the doctor's office, letting them know that we'll be late. They tell me that the Dr.'s dance card is filled up for the day, and want to reschedule for next Tuesday. I ask about the other doctor, knowing that while it may not make Ellen happy, it's better than waiting for 4 days to get checked out. I get put on hold, then I'm told that they stopped doing those types of appointments a full year ago!

Y'know, typically, this would really make me angry and frustrated. Today, all I can do is laugh. I'll deal with my dissatisfaction later.

1:20 p.m. :: CGPD show up - it's the same two officers that responded to our first accident! I passed a church sign earlier in the day that said "Coincidence is when God wishes to remain anonymous." I kinda wished how this fell in His playbook...

1:30 p.m. :: We head over to the ER at St. Francis. I call our insurance agent with the update. We both agree that we all ought to be thankful for what this day DIDN'T bring.

4:15 p.m. :: We FINALLY leave the ER. Spending over 2 1/2 hours at the ER with a 3 year old and a 1 year old is NOT FUN.

5:00 p.m. :: After a few errands, picking up Ellen's paycheck, we head down to the airport to take part in a delicious, all-you-can-eat catfish dinner with my parents and grandma.

6:45 p.m. :: We get home, thankfully in one piece. You can't put enough emphasis on those last four words for a day like this. Waiting for us are a few friends, who we further debrief. I fire up the computer to debrief myself...

At least it's not 100 degrees and miserable inside the house.