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Sunday, October 12. 2008

Friends and Nittany Lions

Here it is, Sunday Morning, October 12, 2008. We are less than a month from the election. A lot has changed — just in this past week. McCain and Palin were stoking the fires of racism and hatred, and now McCain is telling his supporters Barack Obama is not to be feared as president, that the Illinois senator is a decent, honorable family man.

Instead of politics though, I gotta mention my friend Alan. Hadn’t seen him in a long while — months even — and then I saw him Friday afternoon. Alan and I go way back, at least ten years and for many of those years we would see each other nearly every day. We share some life experiences that are either humorous or poignant. Or both.

We met while Alan was recovering from a brain aneurism. He always had a scowl on his face and looked like a very unhappy man. It wasn’t until a few weeks after that I learned why he looked so unhappy: he was recovering from serious surgery. We have been pals ever since.

It was Alan, just five and a half years ago, who convinced me buying a bicycle — a Trek bicycle — was the best investment I could make for my health. Alan has been riding road bikes forever. He doesn’t look like he’s seven years older than me and that’s a result of his riding a bicycle everyday.

He lives in Scripps Ranch as well, a place of hills, killer hills that test a person’s stamina and resolve. There’s nothing so discouraging as pedaling up hill for half a mile and then looking up to see at least another half mile of hill. Sometimes it’s only a quarter mile with an eighth mile of hill yet to climb, but it looks a lot farther.

So you lower your head and pedal.

Alan has a road bike, so it’s easier for him to climb these hills — at least that’s what I tell myself. But he rides up the Pomerado Road grade and that’s a mile of severe climbing, 11% grade in some places. Yeah, he leaves me in the dust.

For years I was interested in getting a Trek bike, they’re made in Wisconsin! But not so interested I would actually buy one and actually ride it. Alan drove me down to the Trek Store on Kearny Mesa Rd, we picked out my Trusty Trek and then had it ordered in my color and size and voila! That was how my Trusty Trek came to be and now it is a fixture of my persona.

Friday, we hooked up about 3-4 miles from the old homestead and I asked Alan of he’d give me and the Trusty Trek a ride home. He said yes of course — we’re practically neighbors — but then added, “If I was really your friend I’d make you pedal all the way home.”

Forgot why I got on this tack, other than it was nice to see Alan. We share some of the same social and political views, he’s a vet, I’m a vet, and both of us have been on the verge of death; he with his brain aneurism and me with a massive heart attack. Both of us had the same reactions and epiphanies during our near death experiences; that we no longer had any control over what was going to happen and found peace in the realization that we could soon be either dead or alive.

Also, neither of us were great patients during our recoveries — we could occasionally be pains in the ass — but what the hell.

Alan is one of the three people who read this screed on a regular schedule and I’ve even convinced him — after all these years — to click the Ads by Google.
 If you think of it, click the Ads by Google. I could use the income!

Kimberlee Ann only reads this blog on occasion. She’s a Playboy Cyber Girl (August 2007) and is in the October 2008 edition of Playboy magazine — “The Girls of the Big Ten.” Which is why I mention her now. The lovely Kimberlee attends Penn State University, home to the Nittany Lions.
 Does anyone know what a “Nittany Lion” is? Just so happens Wikipedia has the answer! There’s a ridgeline close to the university called Nittany Mountain. Back in the day mountain lions populated the area, until human habitation and predation drove them out.
 A hundred one years ago an enterprising senior thought up the mascot when the PSU football team traveled to New Jersey to battle the Princeton Tigers. So much for the tale of the Nittany Lion.

So yesterday, Saturday Night actually, the Lions played the Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall in Madison, Wisconsin. It was horrible. Coach Joe Paterno’s team, led by Daryll Clark, basically stomped all over the sadly over-matched Badgers.
°sigh° 48-7 isn’t a game, it’s a mauling.

So, I tip my hat here to Kimberlee and her Nittany Lions. Yours is the better team, the best team in the Big Ten and ought to be at least #3 in all the polls, including the BCS standings. Forget Texas, flip the bird at USC, Penn State is the team!

As for Kimberlee, she will be a “moraler” for PSU’s 37th “Thon,” a sort of dance marathon they hold every year in February, for charity; the Four Diamonds organization that helps families who have children undergoing care for cancer and to defeat pediatric cancer.

“Moralers” keep the dancers motivated and dancing and they come up with dances and lyrics to go with the dances. It’s something the students involved work on from the beginning of the school year. Click Here to watch a line dance.
 Makes me embarrassed. All I did in college was party like a drunken college student.

This year they raised over six million dollars and for the 2009 event everyone expects PSU to surpass that mark — regardless of the financial crisis. Even if they don’t surpass that mark, it’s still a great thing they do every year.

You’re a great person Kimberlee; you and your fellow students! I hope you break all records, especially raising more money. I’m guessing Four Diamonds will need more this year.

So, Happy Sunday everyone … damn Badgers … Packers better win …

Posted by Tim Forkes in Life at 06:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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