Meschery's Musings of Sports, Literature, and Life

What my musings are all about...

Blogging might well be the 21st century's form of journaling. As a writing teacher, I have always advised my students to keep a daily journal as a way of organizing their thoughts for future writing projects, a discipline I have unfortunately never consistently practiced myself. By blogging, I might finally be able to follow my own good advice.

The difference between journaling and blogging is that the blogger opens his or her writing to the public, something journal- writers are usually reluctant to do. I am not so reticent.

The trick for me will be to avoid cluttering the internet with more blather, something none of us need more of. If I stick to subjects I know: sports and literature, I believe I can avoid that pitfall. I can't promise that I'll not stray from time to time to comment on ancillary subjects, but I will make every attempt to be interesting and perhaps even insightful.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

KISS

I'm going to Keep It Simple Stupid: The San Antonio Spurs' surgically precise dismemberment of the Miami Heat showed the rest of the NBA exactly how the modern pro game should be played. That even within the 24 second rule, there is no need to panic and go one on one, that there is plenty of time for the extra third or fourth pass.

The Spurs did a lot to bring back basketball fans, who have complained so often that they are tired of watching the selfish play of overpaid superstars bent on enhancing their egos. I do find such criticism a touch too harsh, but there's truth there the NBA and its teams need to take to heart. There's excitement and beauty and sportsmanship in a selfless game.

Even though the Spurs showed it could be done, I'm still lobbying for increasing the 24 second time limit to 30 seconds. Bound to get more passing if that happens. Inshallah.

Kudos to the U.S. soccer team for beating Ghana. With Alditore down, I bet the coach wishes he'd kept Landon Donavon on the team. Still think that soccer would be more exciting if they did away with or tweeked the off-side rule. I remember back to my days on the court. One guard was always responsible for seeing that no one cherry picked.

I'm finding it difficult to find a good soccer poem and I'm tired of basketball poems of which there are plenty to choose from. So as my son-in-laws are off fishing these days in the Sierras, here's a fishing poem that is both about romance and fishing, not that the two go together.

Catch by Ethna McKiernan

I imagine us dancing, a Mexican ballroom somewhere
(anything instead of fishing)
In faded, per-war elegance, tropically flowered wallpaper
(jigs, flies, speckled lures and mr. twisters)
Drooping lushly like the evening sea-breeze
(damn the wind, they won't bite now)
And you in sailor whites - a tuxedo, if I blur my eyes
(black, shiny, slimy leeches, grubs, chubs, fathheads. . . )
The band plays 40's swing, a dark man croons "Darling"
(I'm a rapid oxidizer." you announce, sweat streaming down your nose)
"Darling, Take My Heart. . . "
(walleye, pike, sunstroke, crappies)
And my red dress spins faster as you lift me off the floor
(jesus christ, a four pounder)
Its ruffled hem streaming round my knees
(landed)
Like a school of tiny iridescent fish
(darling, take my heart)
You sing at last.