There’s a turn of phrase in Colter Wall’s “1800 Miles”: “we don’t got these kinds of cliques where I was grown.”
We don’t normally talk about humans being “grown.” Maybe we should? Tell me about your terroir.
Because I have never separated myself from my home neighborhood, I cannot identify myself to myself apart from it. I am fairly literally flesh of its flesh. It is present in me, and to me, wherever I go.
Joe had an enviable death. He was visiting with Rachel’s dad and another friend of his. It had been a really good day. He had been looking at the calendar of day trips put on by his assisted living facility, planning to go on one. His friend had arrived to take him out to an early supper. Rachel’s dad was there to help them out. Joe had on his western shirt and asked his friend to get his cowboy hat. Rachel’s dad said, “You look nice! Let me get a picture.” So he took one, turned to show it to Joe’s friend, and heard Joe make a snoring noise. Rachel’s dad assumed Joe was playing some kind of joke (being a lifelong jokester), turned back to look at him, and knew his dad had died. A nurse was fetched, some attempts to rouse him were made, he made a couple more snoring sounds, but it was over. Though it was quite a shock to Rachel’s dad and Joe’s friend, it could not have been more gentle and peaceful.
He died sitting in his chair with his legs crossed and no one moved him. The immediate family quickly gathered. The team from the mortuary was slower to arrive. By the time they did arrive, the siblings were all sitting around, talking to each other, with Joe still sitting in his chair, to all appearances asleep. The guy wheeled in the gurney and looked around, very confused. “Am I in the right room?”
As others remarked, Joe would have been very pleased to know he played one final joke on that poor guy from the mortuary.
For those who don't know: Indiana University has traditionally been a basketball and soccer school. As of two years ago, they had the highest number of losses for any Division 1 football team in history. Apart from a very few years, they've always been varying shades of bad. But they got a new coach, Curt Cignetti, two years ago and he initiated a stunning turnaround. Though they did well last year, this year has been amazing. They're one game away from being the undefeated college football champions.
I was in the dentist's office this morning and I could hear the hygienists all asking their patients if they're going to be watching the game. Everyone everywhere is asking everyone they meet if they'll be watching the game. The answer is, unanimously, yes. At our staff meeting this morning our boss asked us for score predictions, with promises of a prize for the closest answer. Everyone is wearing IU gear. An elementary school child got nationwide attention for writing to the Indiana governor asking him to give schools a two hour delay on the Tuesday morning after the game. He decided to leave it up to individual corporations--and a few are doing it. There are reportedly enormous lines on campus for the free rally towels they've been handing out before each game. These are just a few things that have come to my (again, typically uninterested) ears. I'm sure there's much, much more.
It really is great fun, especially in a time of grim news. I'm glad I've been keeping up with it in recent weeks. It'll be one of those things that people around here will remember for many years to come.
I deleted a quick, frivolous post this morning when I realized why it bugged me after posting it: it was another example of the tedious irony that is the lingua franca of social media. Like "gotcha" political argumentation, it's laziness that mistakes itself for cleverness.
