Vic Socotra

28 December 2008

Old Times, Not Forgotten

(Champs)

The compilation of memorable things that happened this year will be proliferating as internet lists as we get to the moment that the Ball drops in Times Square. Accordingly, I will leave that to the professionals. I don't know how to account for the airstrikes yesterday in Gaza, and where that stacks with Tim Russert's heart attack. Maybe it is best to do horrible things in the last week of the year, so no one pays attention except the ones who got hit.

The other Wars are what they are, with ups and downs, the economy may or may not be at rock bottom, and this horrible drift between Administrations must end sometime, even as the endless election did.

I wonder, in idle moments like these, whether it was the two-year long campaign that contributed to the national malaise. Perhaps we should consider legislation to make everyone stop saying nasty things about everything for longer than six or seven months, tops.

I have a list of things that will be accomplished in the New Year. They are not resolutions- I have several of those as well, but the things I will do without fail are boring, and deal with fiscal reform for the Socotra household. The resolutions are more interesting, but are in line with the same things our government should be doing and won’t.

We’ll see.

Thinking about it, though, maybe the right thing to do is embark on a vast program of infrastructure improvement. I won’t be able to move out of Big Pink for the foreseeable future, so maybe I should outline an ambitious program to make the place look livable. Hire a bunch of people, get them on the payroll with calculated disregard for the consequences.

Maybe we can spend our way out of this. That seems to be the consensus on the new economic team, who are taking a leaf from the dusty text of Lord John Maynard Keynes.

But wait a minute, wasn’t that how we got in this mess? Oh well, I am no government economist and will just try to muddle through.

A resolution I had not considered for 2008 was giving up Football.

It was something that just happened, like the collapse of the markets. I honestly have no idea who is playing in the Bowl Championship Series, or why. It is eerie, but pleasant. It started with the certain foreknowledge that the alma mater was going to suck, big time, for the first time in more than forty years.

Even that certainty did not prepare me for the dire news that came from the Big House at Ann Arbor and points east and west.

In response, I stopped tuning in the television and discovered that there was life in the Fall. It was quite wonderful. I had no idea how pleasant a fall afternoon could be that was not filled with footballs.

Being outside in the crisp air and vibrant foliage was a novelty, and paradoxically brought back the old days in which the games did not root you to a couch or a crowded bar-room in an alcohol-deadened daze.

One of my old team-mates from our college frat must have been feeling the same way, since he wrote me about a time when the game was personal and real.

“Vic,” he wrote me one Saturday when it was clear that the varsity season was going horribly wrong, ”I have a vivid memory about the opening kickoff of the famous pledge challenge game we played in late fall, 1969, against those dicks at Lambda Chi Alpha. I recall being keyed up and realizing that this was "serious," since we were playing for a keg and the "actives" were all watching on the sidelines.”

The memories came back for me, too, like the smell of burning leaves that used to be the acrid seasonal odor all across the Midwest.

My pal continued in an electronic reverie: “But I was just ready to play what for me would have been a normal low-key football game. We kicked off and I was next to you on the Kick Team and as we ran down field to cover the kick, I realized you were screaming at the top of your lungs like a Plains Indian and then you absolutely crushed an opponent while running at (for you) top speed. I then understood what the story was. Playing on a team with you and Beau Diddley was amazing. I think I scored about 3 TD's on pass receptions that day and had a great game.”

“It was inspirational, and made me think back to some of the regular season UM Intramural games. The competition was pretty fierce, since there were guys playing who had not made it on the Varsity teams, but were still superb athletes. I had some of my greatest basketball games of my life at that time, and could always make a key play when needed in our awesome Football games.”

“I was recalling, however, the time we played Alpha Tau Omega in football, either as juniors or seniors. I think the game was scoreless. You were taunting their center during each play, and at one point "head-slapped" him following a snap. On the next play, he was so pissed and anxious to assault you that he made a bad snap from the ATO 3 yard line; and we got a safety. It turned the game around, and we won.”

I sighed. I remember when both my knees worked and could run like the wind. The memories are good and true, and I don’t have to live them in real time. As I recall, the team only lost one game in our four undergraduate seasons.

When I consider the great events of the last forty years- the three gas crises, the savings and loan collapse, and the endless war between the civilizations that Sam Huntington described, I have to say it was that football team that was the personal best of the American Century. '08 may have not been rock-bottom- the jury is way out on that- but I am going to fold that box of memories up tight and put it way back in the closet.

not considering adding vodka to the list.

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