Bracket Dilemma

Yesterday, Bland Weaver, our office bookie, handed me an NCAA bracket to fill out, attach a twenty dollar bill to it, and get it back in his hands in 24 hours. We have done this every year that I can remember and a few years ago I even won the thing. But with each passing year I feel slightly more clueless than the year before. The reason is simple...I have not watched even one college basketball game all year. 

This is a perplexing turn of events. There was once a time when I never missed the ACC game of the week. I used to be able to tell you the names of at least one player on every important team in college basketball. Back in the day, I never would have dreamed of missing even one game of March Madness, in fact, I scheduled an annual Myrtle Beach golf trip around the first weekend of ...The Tournament. It wasn’t just college basketball either, I was well-versed in the statistical minutia of college football, the PGA tour, the NFL, and even NASCAR. Now, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, my only remaining sports obsession is Major League Baseball and Alabama football. The weird thing is I don’t even miss it...except when Bland hands me that bracket. Then, all of a sudden, I feel disconnected...and I begin asking myself, What the heck happened?

Part of my disinterest stems from what has happened to sport in this country. Insane amounts of money have overpowered every organized sport in America, making each unrecognizable to me. College basketball, in particular has become a one and done proposition, whereby juniors and seniors have disappeared from college rosters. Just about the time fans get interested in a player...poof...he declares for the NBA draft. The term Student Athlete should now be erased from the Webster’s Dictionary, since it no longer has any meaning. With the PGA, as soon as Tiger fell from grace...what’s the point? NASCAR? Who are those guys? And why are there so many empty seats in the grandstand? Where the heck are Jeff Gordon and Junior? The NFL? How many players have been arrested for beating up their girlfriends this week? Wake me when it’s over.

So, I will fly through my bracket in a few minutes, picking the likeliest winners, being careful not to overdo it with the upsets, knowing that in reality there are always only 6-8 teams who are capable of winning the thing. Then I will turn it in and hope for the best.

Less than two weeks until first pitch!!=

The Dynamic of The Yard Sale

After several weeks of a packed itinerary of appointments, this week is starting out lighter on the scheduling. This will free me up to get started on that list of projects Pam and I had determined to do in the first quarter of 2019. Yes...I am aware that there are only 14 days left in said quarter...but better late than never. There’s mulch to put down, the outside of the house needs to be power washed and painted, the gutters need to be cleaned out, and the deck stained. Then I’ve got to get the guys from the Mosquito Squad to come and rid my yard of that blood-sucking pestilence. If there’s any time left, I will need to do a deep dive cleaning out of the garage where I will identify items to add to the...ominous music...YARD SALE PILE. Yes, boys and girls, it’s that time again, that glorious Dunnevant family tradition which rears its hideous head every two years with all the warmth and expectation of an un-lanced boil. Long time readers of The Tempest know of my hostile feelings about this particular tradition, so I will not regale you further on the subject, except to say that in less than a month, Mechanicsville will be the site of a ponderous pile of worthless knickknackery being picked through by the oddest collection of bargain hunters, antique sleuths, yard sale junkies, rednecks, and high society women out for a day of incognito slumming ever assembled in eastern Hanover County.

Enough about the Dunnevant yard sale...but what about a few observations about yard sales in general? I have never quite understood the attraction of walking through a collection of someone else's rejected junk, cash in hand, ready to pay money to take it off their hands. Listen, I know that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but in my twenty years of yard sales I can tell you from personal experience that the definition of treasure has been bastardized beyond all comprehension. I saw a guy pay two bucks for a box of Fram oil filters in odd sizes that fit absolutely no engine that he possessed on the reasoning that for two bucks, they were cheap enough to use as something to throw at his neighbor’s barking dog! I’ve seen a reasonably intelligent looking woman buy literally the tackiest sculpture of an angel dressed in a firefighter uniform, an American flag firmly in her mouth, with the burning Twin Towers in the background, with the burning question...I wonder of my nephew will like this, I think he’s a fireman...I’ve seen a old man pulling his own oxygen tank on wheels around ask me what a box full of strips of metal in random shapes with slots hither and yon cut out of them were...to which I replied, Sir, if I live to be a hundred years old, I will never have an answer to that question. Then I watched him gather up the box and pay my sister 5 bucks.

I have no explanation for the dynamic of the yard sale. All I know is that there is something in the human spirit that loves the illusion of the bargain, the idea that you are getting over on the other guy. That moron just sold me a first edition of To Kill a Mockimngbird for 50 cents!! Everybody likes paying as little as possible for things...see Amazon, Walmart...and I get that, but paying as little as possible is one thing. Paying as little as possible for a Walkman cassette tape player without the headphones is something else entirely. But, it is this type of free exchange that has been the backbone of the Dunnevant Family Yard Sale success. We have averaged over $800 a year in revenue in the fifteen or so times we have staged the affair. That money has paid for the groceries for twenty people at fifteen beach weeks now. So, we keep doing it. And they keep coming...in teaming hordes, they keep coming, with their change purses, bulging wallets stuffed with one dollar bills, the official coin of the yard sale realm. And we keep taking their money and stacking it in our metal cash box until it is full. Then we stumble back home and stand under a hot shower for half an hour trying to clean off the detritus of hundreds of human interactions and regain the feeling in our extremities, secure in the knowledge that we will eat like kings on the Outer Banks yet again.

A Wonderful Saturday

March the 16th was a good day here in Short Pump, Virginia. It was a Saturday, for one thing, and it wasn’t cloudy, windy, wet and cold. It was sunny and 58 degrees, and I almost wore shorts before my wife did that eye-roll thing and reminded me that if it was 58 degrees on the first day of Fall I would be wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Be that as it may, I spent most of the morning working in my yard. It was glorious.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking...what’s so glorious about gathering up sticks, raking up leaves, cutting the grass and gathering three months worth of Lucy’s bowel movements out of the backyard?? I’m glad you asked that question...

During the winter months, the elements conspire to reduce me to the confines of the metaphoric four walls of my palatial estate. It’s not that I never venture into the yard in the winter, it’s more like when I do it’s to either shovel snow or stand like a statue in the foul weather begging Lucy to proceed with her business sometime this century....

Me: Alright Lucy, you’ve gone over that particular piece of ground long enough to determine if it is a suitable place to relieve yourself..get on with it!!

Lucy:  sniff sniff sniff

Me: No, seriously...that was the same spot you used yesterday..what’s changed??

Lucy: sniff sniff...waggle...sniff sniff

Me: For heavens sake, It’s freezing, raining, snowing out here!!

But, yesterday I finally was able to reclaim the entirety of my yard. By the time I was through, the place looked great. Then Pam and I went shopping for a new umbrella for the table on the deck, then Pam broke out the bleach to rinse the mold and mildew off the outdoor seat cushions.

When it was time for dinner, Pam decided to go all-in on our Irish heritage by fixing corn beef, cabbage and Irish soda bread...

When doing my Google search on the origins of my last name, no matter what spelling or derivative of the name I used..Dunnevant, Dunnavant, Donovan...I came up with the same thing...100% Irish, largely from the counties of Kilkenny, and Limerick and the meaning of the name in the original Gaelic is translated as black, brown, or chieftain. So, apparently my family is descended from an ancient tribe of, little known and mostly forgotten by history, tribe of black Irishmen!

The Phone Call

Yesterday morning I received a very special phone call. I had just gotten in to the office. It was around 8 o’clock. The caller ID told me that it was a client of mine who happens to be an old friend. I’ve known him almost all of his life. I will try to recall his words accurately. I want to write this down while it is fresh in my mind...

...I’m on the road, driving around on this beautiful morning, and I got to thinking about your Dad, of what a wonderful man he was, of how much he meant to me and my family when he was alive. You know, your Dad was famous for those long invitations at the end of services where he would sing 13 verses of the invitation hymn. Ha! Well, in my case, if he had limited it to just twelve I might never have become a Christian. Anyway, this morning I was wishing that I could call him up and thank him, but I can’t do that. But, I thought...if I can’t call up Emmett, I guess I should call Doug and pass along the thanks to him, instead. Be sure to pass the thank you along to your brother and sisters too, ok?

When I hung up the phone, I needed a minute to compose myself. I sat there in my quiet and empty office pondering what had just happened. I tried to imagine someone, anyone...five years after my death picking up a phone and calling one of my children to thank them for my life and just couldn’t.

So, thank you, Ray Melton. 

Intelligent Design?

Yesterday was a day for the ages. Every once in a while a day comes along that makes you wonder what’s going on. I mean, how many things can go wrong in one 24 hour period? How many things is it possible to screw up between sunrise and sunset? Listen, every day has its own challenges, I get it...but some days it’s like they are having a clearance sale on challenges...buy one, get two for free.

So, yesterday was going along just fine at first. Everything was on schedule, clicking along in a plodding, predictable way. Then the auditor showed up. A surprise, unannounced auditor...which is fine. We get one of these every few years. No big deal. But, getting audited is unnerving. Someone with authority shows up at your office and starts poking around looking for mistakes, and immediately your blood pressure ticks up. I came out of it largely unscathed, but annoyed by the process and its underlying assumptions. From there, things went downhill in a hurry. One setback after another, one foul up on top of another began raining down on me. It was as if, given an opening by the surprise auditor, the dogs of misfortune got loose from their pen and began rampaging through my office, leaving several odious piles on the carpeting.

But, there’s good news, because of the ingenious design of the the 24 hour day. We wake up with the sun, and as it rises, so do we. By noon, we are fully engaged in our work. When the sun gets lower in the sky, we too start to disengage. When it slips under the horizon, most of us retreat into our homes, the comforts of which begin to do their therapeutic work. Our favorite chair awaits. The dog greets you as a conquering hero. Over dinner you tell your best friend about your miserable day. She listens patiently, nods knowingly. She has heard it all before, but acts like she hasn’t. You then settle into your after dinner routine. You read some, you watch a little Grapefruit League baseball. Before you know it, it’s like the day never even happened. Then you wake up to a brand new day, yesterday’s disasters but a memory, and you think...wouldn’t it be horrible if we lived in a world where the sun never set? An incredibly intelligent design, the rising and setting of the sun, and the perfect rhythm it provides to our lives.

...not to mention the glorious views.

Questions About This Mornings Post

One of my young friends from back in my Grove Avenue youth group days asked me a couple of questions earlier today about this morning’s blog. The first question was about my trip out west after high school which caused me to miss my first Fall semester at U of R. He wanted details! The second question concerned how I managed to pay for the rest of my college experience after my dad forced me to pay my first semesters tuition with my own money. Since he asked, I will attempt an answer to both questions in what promises to be perhaps the most boring blog post in the nearly nine year history of The Tempest. 

After I graduated from Patrick Henry high school in June of 1976, I was not ready for college. I wasn’t ready for anything that looked or felt like being a grown up. So, along with my best friend, Al Thomason, I hatched a plan that would buy me some time. The two of us got jobs working in the warehouse of Lowe’s Hardware on Broad Street. We signed up for every shift they would give us. Our plan was to save every dime we made and blow it all on a cross country back-packing odyssey out west. While the rest of our friends would be moving into freshman dorms, we would be on the mother of all road trips cross country, heading for the Rocky Mountains. We both left Richmond on August 12th with $1,000 of cash each. Seven weeks later we wound up totally broke and almost out of gas near Bluefield, West Virginia. Luckily for us, we knew a freshman at Bluefield College who allowed us to crash in his room. His dorm took up a collection for us so we could make it home. Those seven weeks are mostly a blur now, but some of the highlights involved the Bad Lands in South Dakota, Mt. Rushmore, a rodeo in Gillette, Wyoming, Glacier Park, Montana and a motorcycle mechanic and his very hot gypsy girlfriend, Yellowstone, and a series of cowboy bars in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The hiking was incredible, the life experiences even more so. Needless to say, my parents didn’t think much of my plan, thinking it dangerous and foolhearty. They were right.

Here we were, ten minutes before leaving on our trip. My dad probably was looking at us while Mom took this picture and thinking...What could possibly go wrong??

Now, as far as the second question goes...its a bit harder to piece together. Basically, I was only able to afford to go to U of R if I commuted, and even then, I couldn’t really afford it. My dad was a Baptist preacher and I was the last of his four college attending kids, so A. Dad didn’t make much money and B. By the time I came along he was tapped out. So that meant I had to find a job. Lucky for me, I did...building pallets and assembling shelving in an un-air conditioned, and unheated warehouse in the Hanover Industrial Air Park for a company called Trefz & Steenburgh. In the four and a half years it took me to graduate from college, I worked every single week, 25 hours, from 12:30 to 5:30 every day, Monday thru Friday. During the summers I worked full time there and built decks with my buddy Al on weekends. The money I was able to make over the summers helped keep the amount I would have to borrow in the fall more manageable. The money I made from that job...about $175 a week after taxes paid for about a third of the costs. Everything else was financed through loans that my dad co-signed for me and educational loans from an outfit called the Charles B. Keesee Fund. I graduated with roughly $18,000 in Keesee loans in 1981. It took me ten years to pay them all off.

So, there you have it.

The Latest College Scam

These two pretty women are TV stars. That’s what every headline I read yesterday called them. One is Felicity Huffman, the other Lori Loughlin. The one on the left used to be on Full House, I think. The one on the right has been on a bunch of shows. If I search hard enough I’m sure that I can find footage of both of them lecturing middle America about our manifold failings in the area of either gun control, LBGT rights, abortion or immigration. Chances are very good that they would both qualify as woke. Or maybe not...maybe they are just two apolitical empty suits. Until yesterday neither of these two women had entered my consciousness in over a decade. Now, i can’t get either of them out of there!

So, these two actresses were among over 50 wealthy, well-connected parents, administrators and coaches caught up in an FBI dragnet of illegal college admissions activity, whereby rich people sought to bypass the normal admissions proceedure (which was screwed up to begin with), by falsifying test scores and impersonating athletes for the benefit of their non-athletic, not bright enough children. In other words...what rich, entitled parents have been attempting to do for their worthless pea-brained kids since Christ was a corporal. Talk about your dog-bites-man story...I mean, where’s the fire?

Anyway, this story got me to thinking about how I got in to University of Richmond back in the day. My parents were completely disengaged about my future plans. They were the type of parents who today would be considered negligent, almost to the point of disinterest. My first couple of years in high school were spent adrift from academics...I had decided to become a carpenter who wrote stories on the side. College wasn’t on my radar screen. Suddenly at the dawn of my junior year, I realized that if I wanted to even consider college I had to actually buckle down and open a book once in a while. All of these decisions came about with virtually no input  from Mom or Dad, who were apparently preoccupied with putting food on the table to concern themselves with what Junior was going to be when he grew up. Anyway, my last two years of high school featured straight A’s, which was fine...but only partially fixed my GPA. If I was going to get in to UofR I was going to have to do well on the SAT test. My guidance counselor handed me a test preparation book with two sample tests and a piece of paper with all the exam dates and sites and said...Good Luck, kid.

I took the thing twice, scored quite well on it, then wrote a snappy essay and fired off my application to UofR. When I got my acceptance letter, Dad looked up from his News Leader Green Section to say, Congratulations, Son, and that was that. Later that year when I informed him that I wouldn’t be matriculating until I returned back from my planned two month backpacking trip out west, his answer was typical of my Dad. I paraphrase:

I think that’s a dumb idea. But if that’s what you’re determined to do, here’s the deal. You better get a job when you get back and save up your money, because your spring semester tuition is coming out of YOUR pocket.

That’s exactly what happened too. When I finally ran out of cash out west, I made it home and immediately went to work for a guy named H.G. Lanier installing lockers and shelving in high schools in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. I will never forget how horrible it felt to write a check to the admissions office for $1800 in 1977.

But, back to the two lovely ladies above. The thing about the story that infuriates me is this. To make room for their pampered, privileged spawn, somebody else had to be denied. Chances are, that someone was some incredibly bright, hard working kid who busted his or her butt compiling a 4.0, piled up hours and hours of extra curricular activities over four years, stayed up late studying and practicing for their SAT tests, while their parents worked three jobs saving up to be able to put them through if they were fortunate enough to get accepted. That kid also opened an acceptance letter. But, his or her dreams were crushed...to make room for Constance Elizabeth Huffman with her 1600 SAT score and four year career as a champion pole vaulter, field hockey captain and point guard of the basketball team.

Makes me want to throw up...