The Power of Cookies

The little guy and I went for a cookie today. In and of itself, this isn't anything special. I'm sure Subway sells thousands of cookies daily and I'm willing to bet a fair number of them are sold to a dad and his son. 

I got one too.

But today was special because I wanted it to be special. After spending a little more than an hour at the playground (mostly in the field next to the playground playing soccer), I asked the little guy if he wanted a treat, which I didn't tell him what it was. Like any kid, he was excited and intrigued. 


I can't say I'd have done it were it not for a tweet from someone who is quickly becoming one of my favorites, Jeff Pearlman. (you may remember him as the guy whose idea I modified for our "Good Deed a Day for Lent" efforts. Anyway, he tweeted the other day "Friend of a friend had a funeral today. 38. volunteer firefighter. headaches 10 days ago - brain cancer. Hug your kids, skip work, live!" Granted, being unemployed, it's easy to skip work, even if, as the saying goes, the problem with being unemployed is as soon as you wake up, you're on the job.


 I've read far too many "live for today. God hasn't promised you tomorrow," sayings. I can't say why this particular one struck me, other than the personal nature of it. Something's different when there's an actual person tied to the circumstances. So hug your kids. Tell your significant other you love them. Skip work and spend all day on your roof playing the tuba or whatever bucket list item you've been putting off.  And if that item is "send money to that unemployed guy who rarely blogs," you should really get on that.

You Get What You Give

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook or (significantly less likely) in one of my circles on Google+ know that for Lent my three-year old son and I are doing a good deed for each of the 40 days. So far we’ve done something as small as helping grandma with a project she’s working on to giving a flower to a stranger outside of a grocery store.

I’ve had a couple of people tell me they like the fact I’m doing something for Lent rather than giving something up and a few have asked me where I got the idea.

The idea came from a Jewish sports writer, Jeff Pearlman. He got the idea from editing a rough draft of a book for a friend of his. His friend’s father is suffering from ALS and his honor, decided to give one gift a day for 64 days (his father’s age) to a stranger. Pearlman’s wife was so moved by the idea that their family has committed to doing at least one good deed a week for a year. Inspired by that idea, I adapted it for Lent. (His post can be found here.)

We’re only a week into it, and it’s been extremely rewarding. Even though my son is shy and doesn’t always show excitement when he’s doing whatever it is we’re doing, as soon as we get back to the car, he’s got a smile a mile wide, which coincidently, is the way he describe how nice it is to do something for someone else.

To be honest, it’s a lot harder to come up with good deeds a three-year old can do than I thought it would be. But the challenge of it and the reward we get from it makes the effort worthwhile. 

Smile on your brother

Not my groundskeeper

I don't know his name. I really don't know anything about him. For all I know he goes home and conducts experiments on mice that will eventually lead to Pinky and The Brain being considered a prophecy instead of a cartoon. But for about two minutes each day, the groundskeeper at the park makes my day.

While there are a great number of things that, well, suck about being unemployed, one thing that doesn't is the time to take a walk when most people are working. So every morning after I drop the little guy off at pre-school, I head out to Mill Creek Park to take a 2.5 mile walk around 8:15 a.m. And every morning, this affable groundskeeper is there, dutifully doing his job to keep it nice and clean.

But every time I walk past him (which is only twice, three times at most), he gives me a hearty smile, a sincere wish that I have a good day, and, lately, wishes to stay warm.

I have no idea what this guy does for the rest of the day, or even if he's as jovial the rest of the day. Maybe he's just a morning person who uses up all his positive energy by lunch time and by the afternoon is a sullen, grumpy, bitter man. Who knows? All I know is the times I walk by, he's everything you'd want a groundskeeper to be.

Lighten up, Francis

Vernon Davis had just scored the second-biggest touchdown of his career. Sure, it was only the second quarter, but the San Francisco 49er tight end had just caught a 73-yard touchdown pass to put his team ahead with a spot in the Super Bowl going to the victor. After his dash down the sideline to the endzone, he leaped over a row of photographers and ran over to the television camera stand and jumped on it. He stayed there for four or five seconds at most before jumping down to celebrate with his teammates. For that, his team was penalized 15 yards on the ensuing* kickoff because the NFL officials find such actions to be excessively celebratory.

*The only time you ever hear the word “ensuing” is in conjunction with kickoff. I’m hoping my pastor concludes his sermon this week by saying “in our ensuing sermon next Sunday, we’ll be discussing” Jesus or peace or what New England has to do to contain the Giants front four during the Super Bowl.

Look, I get that the league doesn’t want a Peter Griffin inspired song and dance after every touchdown, but penalties for excessive celebration serves only one real purpose that I can find. It’s to reinforce to the fans and spectators that this contest is serious business and needs to be shown the utmost respect and dignity.

LEAGUE OFFICIALS: What? The players are having fun and showing emotion on the field? This can not be. We must stop this.

And, thus, the dumbest rule in sports: the excessive celebration rule.

On some level, I can understand league officials and even team owners wanting to portray the games as a serious battle between groups of gladiators meeting on the battlefield prepared to wage war (you didn’t blink twice at the war metaphor, did you?). By presenting the game as some larger than life event with ruins of biblical proportions to visit the vanquished while the victor will feast on the finest meats and cheeses in all the land, all brought to them by maidens is togas who will then fan the players with giant tree leaves, it gives the impression the game matters.

Even broadcasters, who work for media companies who have paid princely sums of money to the league for the right to broadcast the games, have a vested interest in portraying the games as life-or-death struggles. Ideally, they’d be able to show a little self-awareness and realize they’re talking about a game.

But the fans. Oh, the fans. I, too, was like many of you once. I wanted players to “act like they’ve been there before” and to “go about their business like professionals.” I hated the endless celebrating after every catch. I cringed at the touchdown dances. All if it was too much. I couldn’t take it.

Then, like Elwood Blues, I saw the light. It’s a game. And that’s it. It’s ONLY a game. The same game you play with your friends on Thanksgiving when you’re a little kid only without the television cameras, crowd, lights, announcers, huge contracts and your game gets cut short because you have to wash your hands before dinner. It’s supposed to be entertainment. So what if the guy gets a first down and then wants to spend the next 45 seconds dancing a jig reminiscent of Riverdance. Other than the five-yard penalty his team will get for delay of game, there’s no harm. I don’t get mad when a guitarist goes on an extended solo at a rock concert. I’m there to be entertained. Same when I’m watching a football game. I want to be entertained, and amusing celebrations are fun.

It may not be exactly what country singer Lee Ann Womack meant when she said “I hope you dance,” but NFL players, I hope you dance. Dance like millions of people are watching, because we are. I hope next season when Vernon Davis scores a touchdown, he runs to a camera, strikes a pose from the movie “Gladiator” and screams “Are you not entertained?”

This post remains untitled

A collection of thoughts too long for twitter (feel free to follow me @lukermartin, or if you feel financially obligated, I accept cash and checks) but too short for their own blog entry.

• Lemonade is for right after you’ve finished mowing the lawn. Beer is for the ballgame. But when is Root Beer time. Not Root Beer Floats, but just root beer? When’s the last time you wanted a beverage and thought to yourself “you know, I could really go for a root beer right about now?” Never. No one says that. Yet Root Beer continues to be sold at what I can only assume is a profitable pace. Are there that many people drinking it that I’m not aware of or is there a massive Root Beer Float industry that I’ve totally missed?

• Twitter makes live television infinitely better, especially sports. The sense of global community that takes place when everyone’s commenting on a game is unmatched. It’s the equivalent of a digital sports bar where the only things being said are either observations on the game or jokes made about the game or its participants (including broadcasters). It’s what you’d do with your friends if you were all in one place watching the game together. Only now you don’t have to be in the same place. Or, in the event your wife watches something like “The Bachelor,” you can make all the sarcastic comments about how terrible the show is and mock the contestants on Twitter while still spending quality time with your wife without her getting mad at you for making fun of the one show she really likes and she knows it’s trash tv but she likes to turn her mind off once a week and just enjoy the trash. Not that I’ve ever done that, mind you, but one could, if they were so inclined. While DVRs may have made television more convenient, Twitter has made it more enjoyable.

• Arguing about sports is, for the most part, more enjoyable than watching the games themselves. Assuming you’re talking to someone who also gets that it’s just sports and is supposed to be fun, there’s nothing better* than arguing whether Babe Ruth would have been a great player in today’s game (he wouldn’t) or if Tim Tebow is a good quarterback (he isn’t) or if the blue team will beat the green team during halftime of a college football game when they let the local recreation league teams play for 10 minutes as a way of forcing the parents to buy tickets they wouldn’t otherwise have bought because who is going to tell their kid they can’t play on the same field as their local sports heroes when the rest of their team gets to play?  (the blue team always wins.)

*There are, in fact, a few things better. Actually, many, many things better.

• What Jon Stewart does on The Daily Show is absolutely amazing. The ability to take serious issues and mock them in such a way that you’re both laughing and thinking is astounding. It also makes me realize just how very bad the traditional news media is at informing the public. Then I just remind myself that news organizations are in the business of making money and are simply catering to their customers who just want their preconceived notions reinforced by the pretty lady on the TeeVee. Watching CNN, FOX News or MSNBC because you want to be informed is like drinking root beer because you want to get drunk. No matter how hard you try, it’s not going to happen.