Be Like Mike? No Thanks

Basketball in ye olden tymes of yore, when the girls didn't even get uniforms.

Soaring through the air has always seemed like it would be really cool.

Having millions of dollars would be nice, too.

And to be the best in the world at something, that would be unimaginably amazing.

But you know, these days, I’m pretty happy to not Be Like Mike.

Last month, Sports Illustrated ran a heart-wrenching story of the man who was Michael Jordan’s high school basketball coach. Legend has it, this man cut Jordan from the team his sophomore year and provided the motivational spark that helped create a legendary player.

Turns out the legend was wrong.

Jordan never got cut; he simply didn’t get promoted to varsity that year. Seems ridiculous in retrospect, but the coach needed a tall player on varsity and MJ wasn’t there yet. In the years since, including during a painful Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Jordan has taken every chance to throw in a few digs at the coach who “cut” him and the player who did make the varsity.

How’s that for thanks to a man who, like so many coaches, gave of his time and talent to help young people? The sad part of the story is the troubled life that coach has led ever since, a fact that still didn’t keep Jordan from getting his digs in every once in a while.

That story didn’t just capture my attention for its content, it grabbed my attention because at the very same time it came out, my former teammates and I were planning an event to say thanks to our high school coach. We didn’t go on to be millionaires, we didn’t even go on to be very athletic but clearly we grew up to be people who can appreciate a good deed when one is turned.

And what a good deed coaching girls in the 1970s was.

Forty years ago this summer, Title IX passed, mandating that institutions that received federal funds must provide equal opportunities for males and females. Girls' sports went from intramural to varsity status in the states that weren't offering that already, which was most of them. Everything the boys had, the girls were supposed to have, too.

Well, sort of.

It was such a thrill to be able to play, I actually forgot a few key details of the era. For starters, in my freshman year we didn’t even have uniforms. We played in our old gymsuits, with pinnies on them with numbers. What I did remember was I was No. 11 because I have no artistic skills whatsoever and that was the easiest number to make with athletic tape.

We played in grade-school gyms that sometimes weren’t even regulation size. We had to share locker rooms with the teams who just killed us, which, sadly, happened a lot.

Our coach was a typing and business teacher at the school who had no athletic background beyond the old intramural system, because it simply wasn’t offered to her. But she was instrumental in making sure we had the chance she didn’t have.

To this day, our coach apologizes for what she didn’t know about basketball.  To this day, we still don’t care. We got to play, and that’s what we cared about most of all.

So much of life is about celebrating the winners. Sometimes it’s necessary to celebrate those who were there. My teammates and I got that chance and it was amazing to revisit all this with the perspective of an adult. I had no idea one of my teammates had a stalker and I loved how my coach asked the question, “OK, how many of you drank during the season?” (The answer, from one teammate: “What did you think? I lived above a bar.”)

MJ can have his Hall of Fame career and the Hall of Fame chip on his shoulder. I’ll take those long bus rides and half-size gyms and wouldn’t change a thing.

Well, maybe I’d lose the gymsuit.

Eventually the uniforms arrived. Matching socks, not so much.

Malibu Barbie, Holiday Barbie ... Bald Barbie?

Barbie with Puppy Swim School

Wow. I can’t believe I’m going to come down on the side of Barbie.

I can’t believe I’m about to say that her ridiculously blonde hair, disproportionately stacked build and glittery outfits are all that they should be.

Because sometimes, they should be.

A campaign recently began to ask Mattel to create a bald Barbie in support of children with cancer. Mattel’s subsidiary, American Girl, has received similar requests.

A Facebook group dedicated to the cause has nearly 120,000 likes. Many on there tell heart-breaking stories of illnesses that have impacted their children and other family members. In an article written by the Associated Press, the page’s founders say a bald Barbie would help raise awareness for children with cancer.

Sorry, but "awareness" is a grown-up word, a grown-up notion. Do children need to be aware of cancer if it isn’t in their world? Do children in that situation want a doll that looks like them or do they want a doll that does what so many dolls do for girls – provide a fantasy world? 

I have no children, but I have had cancer. I was fortunate to not lose my hair and got more than few jolts of the real world when sitting in oncology waiting rooms with people and children who had.

As a kid, however, I had the kinds of things that make you realize you are not like other kids. I wore leg braces and, later, a back brace. Walk out the door with bolts on your shoes and metal around your neck and try to feel like the other kids.

Yet what I needed most back then -- and got -- wasn't some awareness campaign or a toy that looked like me. I had parents who somehow, miraculously, made me believe that as much as this stunk, it shouldn't have to affect who I was or who I wanted to be.

When I went to Girl Scout camp, I went to regular old camp. One year, we were visited by kids from a nearby camp for disabled children. There was a girl who visited who had the same back brace I did for the same reason I did. My parents sent me to Girl Scout camp, let me play basketball, climb trees, ride my bike and generally be a regular kid. This other girl's parents sent her to a camp for disabled kids. I wish I had been older and more mature to talk to her about it; the memory of that saddens me to this day. 

For a child with cancer, I  imagine her regular kid world would include her toys and her dolls, no matter how unreal they look. For little girls, Barbie is a fantasy world. She’s held up as ideal, a beautiful ideal, someone many little girls grow up wanting to be.

For a sick child, I would think that would be a wonderful escape. Feminists and cultural critics have long debated the wisdom of Barbie as a role model, but in this case let the child have her fantasy and spare her the teaching moment. I suspect even without a special Barbie, a little girl with cancer is gaining quite an awareness of what the real world has to offer.

Do children need this "awareness" in their toys? That’s what it comes down to. Barbie is not alone in this regard. The pink juggernaut of breast cancer has had things such as rubber duckies, Beanie Babies and even a pink Sponge Bob Square Pants toy.

In a perfect world, children would never have to be aware of these things. But in a world that’s far from perfect, letting a child believe her Barbie is perfect might be some of the best medicine of all.

The image promoted by those who want Mattel to create a Beautiful Bald Barbie.

One Life, One Soap, One Era Almost Over

A pimp -- and a surgeon. Quite the career arc for Marco Dane.

 Well, it was a pretty good “Life.”

On Friday, Jan. 13, after more than 40 years, “One Life to Live” will come to its end. Llanview will be no more. Pimps will stop being surgeons and rich guys will have to find someone besides local housewives to be their hookers.

A sad day indeed.

The Llanview folks can’t even go hang out with their friends in Pine Valley, because they’re gone too. “All My Children,” one of the most successful soap operas of all that took place in fictional Pine Valley, bit the dust last fall.

Soap operas, a genre of drama that dates back to radio days, are a dying breed and the likes of Victoria Lord Reilly Buchanan (and maybe a few more last names since I stopped watching) and Dorian Lord seemingly have no place in the viewing world anymore.

In 1970, there were 19 soap operas on all three networks. Once “One Life to Live” ends its run, there will be just four – "The Young and the Restless," "The Bold and the Beautiful," "General Hospital" and "Days of Our Lives."

“One Life to Live” debuted in 1968 and was never the sexy soap opera. For some reason, though, it was always my favorite. “All My Children” was edgier in terms of weaving in contemporary issues, and “The Young and the Restless” figured out sooner than everybody else that teenagers and people in their 20s liked watching soaps, too.

My mom wasn’t a big soap opera watcher, but she watched this one from time to time, although she had a preference for "As the World Turns."  My Aunt Pep loved to tune in to what she called “my stories,” and as a night nurse, like my mom, she got a chance to watch them. I have a tendency to equate soap operas with ironing because I have a vague memory of them being watched while my mom ironed, not to mention aerosol starch products were pretty big advertisers.

There are a variety of reasons I liked “One Life to Live” best. Part was watching it with my mom, part was a vague recollection of being home sick the day the very first episode aired. I think someone died falling down the stairs in a hospital. However, that could have been "Ryan's Hope."

But two other reasons are a big part of it. The moral core of this story – the good people, the valiant people – were newspaper people. The good vs. evil thread that weaved through the show in all the years I watched it pitted noble newspaper publishers, editors and reporters vs. the rich and powerful.

I doubt that “One Life to Live” was why I chose the newspaper business, because the show also featured hookers and I didn’t choose that career path. But working at a newspaper was something I wanted to do since I could hold a pen in my hand, and no doubt that was part of the appeal of the show.

The second big reason I loved “One Life” was the utterly outlandish plots. I mean, every soap opera has outlandish plots. Yet for a time in the late 1970s and early 1980s when soaps were hot hot hot, this show had some humdingers that still crack me up.

There was Marco Dane, who was a pimp --  and a surgeon. Well, not officially. He was a pimp whose surgeon brother was murdered and Marco did a whole lot of studying to take over his twin’s identity and good path in life. Who knew it was so easy?

And there was his pal Karen, who was the wife of the chief of staff at the hospital – and a hooker. That the hooker housewife, whose sister was an ex-nun of course,  grew up to be well-regarded actress Judith Light makes it all the more wonderful.

And there were memory losses and switched babies and multiple personality disorders and wife beaters and people returning from the dead and evil twins and rapists and cowboys and cults and a bizarre bit of time travel.

But after Friday, it will all be gone, replaced by a new health and lifestyle program. Because, you know, there just aren’t enough of those.

You can’t blame the networks. Soap opera ratings have been tanking for years, and a scripted drama with a large cast costs way more money than talk and reality shows. The demographics of the fans aren’t what they once were, aging with each passing day.

Yet it’s not so much that viewers don’t want a soap opera; they just don’t have to tune into one that is scripted anymore. Why pay somebody to write about the rich and powerful of Pine Valley when you can just see what the Kardashians are up to? Who has to wonder what crazy antics Erica Kane has planned when you can just check out what Snooki is doing? Who needs the evil schemes of Kay Chancellor and Victor Newman when a real-life presidential candidate paid a staffer to claim parentage of that out-of-wedlock baby?

Real life – or the way television networks choose to present it -- has trumped the soap operas. And in the real vs. fake, soap operas just don't stand a chance.

Never would I think that I would like life to be more like a soap opera. But, really,  I wish they weren't so darn close. 

 "I am a common hooker. Marco Dane was my pimp. Is that what you want me to say? Do you want more filth? Do you want names?  Now are you satisfied?"

Observations From 21 Years of Iowa Life

The sun sets  over the Iowa side of the Mississippi River. Not a pig or cornstalk in sight.

In Iowa, I learned to speak Italian. In Iowa, I learned an appreciation for contemporary art because of a tremendous museum that specializes in it. In Iowa, I learned to play field hockey from Olympians.

But the most important thing I learned from living in Iowa for a big chunk of my adult life is this: Look beyond the stereotypes; nothing ever is what it seems.

This week, Atlantic magazine published a massive essay, the snappily titled "Observations From 20 Years of Iowa Life,"  by a University of Iowa professor who conveniently is teaching in Michigan right now. Not a native Iowan, he felt compelled to explain this place to others since it plays such an important role in the political process. Its caucuses are the first-in-the-nation decision in an election year, a situation that pretty much ticks off the other 49 states.

Once the professor’s essay hit the Internet, the gloves were off. My friends, Iowans by birth and by choice, let their rage fly as did people throughout the state and nation. Snarky T-shirts are already on the market. The poor professor, whose $100,000-plus salary is paid for by the people he just characterized as meth-heads who love pig manure and are going to die alone, just doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about.

It takes thick skin to live in Iowa; it seems to be targeted for this kind of mockery more than similar rural states -- and there are many of them. It takes even thicker skin to not be from there and choose to stay there. People look at you as if you are insane.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. They have corn there. They have pigs there. There are no pro sports there, yadda yadda yadda.

Iowans know what’s there. What drove most of them so crazy by the Atlantic piece are the sweeping generalities with which the place was described.

“Elevators in rural America raise and lower grain, not people,” went one phrase.

Yes, when I went to the top of the 45-story Principal Financial Group's headquarters in Des Moines about 15 years ago, I remember cursing the fact that People Elevators had not yet come to our part of the world.

“Almost every Iowa house has a mudroom, so you don’t track mud or pig shit into the kitchen or living room,” went another well-turned phrase.

In 21 years, I had seven different residences and not one mudroom. Not even in the Victorian home I owned that was so beautiful a national magazine came in and did a photo shoot there.

I learned to love Iowa, but I left. Despite the joy I have with where I live now, leaving Des Moines is a decision I will question for the rest of my life. I didn’t dislike it, I think I just became restless the same way I had when I left the small town of my birth, another perfectly fine place that I just felt compelled to leave because that’s what life was telling me.

I left Iowa with friends I will keep forever and an understanding that every place is someone’s home. You live in Indiana? I'm not going to make fun. You're moving to Walla Walla, Wash.? I'm not going to snicker.

I came to love Iowa, to love Des Moines and they became my home. I learned that way too many people have a way of judging every place, and learned it’s irritating to be on the receiving end of it no matter where you are.

That knowledge served me well after I moved to a small town, my hometown no less. I see the quizzical looks of people who wonder why I wouldn’t want to be in a city, and then follow with a patronizing, “Oh, it’s where you grew up" comment, as if that means I didn’t have the nerve to leave.

These days, I think it takes nerve to stay. Some of the bravest people I know live here: gay couples who live their lives openly; people who open businesses on the faith the customers will come; volunteer firefighters and rescue workers who always know that the person they're pulling from a burning building or twisted wreckage could be a friend or neighbor.

Perhaps there's a reason I found my greatest happiness in the kinds of places most people disdain. Perhaps there’s a certain smugness to knowing you know what is good even if other people can’t figure it out. Sort of like digging that band no one else has heard of yet.

Maybe it’s a topic I’ll discuss with my Iowa friends the next time I visit. While we’re sitting in their mudroom, of course.

In Iowa, they have funky art. And tall buildings with elevators -- that carry people.

They Called It Puppy Love, and It Still Hounds Us

The face that made so many girls swoon, so many moons ago.

Today is Donny Osmond’s birthday.

I don’t point that out because I am throwing a party for him later and expect him to stop by. I just point it out because I know it.

It’s the same way I know that David Cassidy’s birthday is April 12 and Susan Dey’s is the day after Donny Osmond’s. I wish I didn’t know this, but I do.

I have a weird Rain Man-like quality for remembering some numbers, but I know in this case I am not alone. On this day every year, inevitably, one of my friends will comment that it is Donny Osmond’s birthday. We just know. If one of us dies on Dec. 9 some day well into the future, someone, somewhere will say, “Wow, she died on Donny Osmond’s birthday.”

In the case of David Cassidy and Susan Dey, we were helped in this knowledge by a Partridge Family album cover that had all their birthdays on it. In the case of Donny Osmond, it probably was just puppy love.

The things we loved as teeny-boppers have a way of following us through the decades, for better or for worse. I’m a little perplexed by the women my age or older that you see screaming at oldies concerts performed by the former object of their affection, but still.

I learned how to spell Albuquerque because Keith Partridge wanted me to point him in that direction. I thought the bluest skies I’d ever see would be in Seattle because Bobby Sherman said so. I thought there couldn’t be anything better in all the world than maybe one day singing and dancing with my brothers and sisters and cousins because that’s what Donny, Jay, Merrill, Wayne and Alan and Michael, Marlon, Jermaine, Tito and Jackie and sometimes Randy did.

And of course I thought they were all so cute and I wanted to meet them and of course if they just met me, they would love me, too. It's something young girls have felt from Elvis to David Cassidy to New Kids on the Block to 'N Sync to the Bieber.

I once spoke to a child psychologist for a story I was writing about that phase of life for young girls. Those posters on the wall, that love of a stranger far away, that 10-year-old form of desire for what can best be described as an abstract concept is actually a good thing, the psychologist said. Girls start feeling that earlier than boys do, the psychologist said, and the teen idols are a good target for that energy since the boys they know can’t be bothered at that age.

And if you’ve ever been to a concert of any teen idol, you can see why boys that age would – and should – be terrified.

Now I see these former idols as a happy memory of childhood, something that I loved the way I loved my Spirograph or Boxcar Children books. The difference is, these are real people with real lives.

And real birthdays, that we no doubt will remember for the rest of our lives. 

Sadly, the world never got to learn the birthday of the other Chris Partridge.

A Little Bit of Old School

The old school building in Mount Horeb. (T. Hegglund photo)

“I want to run through the halls of my high school. I want to scream at the top of my lungs.” – John Mayer, singing a song I can’t stand.

  ...

Movies do it, songs do it, websites like reunion.com do it.

They focus on the nostalgia people supposedly carry for high school. That just brings up one big question in my mind:

High school?

It’s not just that high school can be a treacherous place, but recent events made it clear to me that when people have wonderful memories of school, it’s grade school.

An old school building in my town, something that in 1918 was built as a K-12 and now just has first- and second-graders, is shut down for a year because it is being gutted on the inside and renovated. I had the chance to go in it with the local historical society to see if there was anything we wanted to take before the proverbial wrecking balls started swinging.

How much did I want to see this school? I took the day off of work to get inside it and explore.

Strangely, people didn’t think that was weird; most people I know were jealous. They, too, wanted a look at the school they hadn’t seen in decades before it looks entirely different.

I posted photos on Facebook; they were shared and spread like wildfire so much that a woman I know in Colorado who is from my town said her 90-something mother had told her there were pictures floating around somewhere on “the computer” of the old school.

Other people’s enthusiasm for seeing the inside of the place made me think of two things. For starters, what a lost opportunity this was for somebody to make some money off all the old alums by offering tours. But mostly, the overflow of affection for this school made it clear that while high school can be a horror for most, grade school could be something to love.

It’s grade school our brothers and sisters marched off to when we were left at home wondering when we, too, could go. It’s grade school that is so important that our parents must take our pictures the first days we attend. It’s grade school when we get recess and take milk breaks twice a day. At least in Wisconsin.

We were clean slates when it came to grade school. Learning and reading and writing were something we couldn’t wait to do. And often we LOVED our teachers, as if they were the most wonderful beings on the face of the Earth. I recently bumped into my third-grade teacher, introduced myself and got a sort of sideways arm around/hug that could only come from a woman who is used to hugging people much smaller than she is. Hugs are de rigeur in the grade school world. High school, not so much.

Grade school was not perfect, to be sure. Kids very early on can recognize “the other” and for some the teasing starts at a mercilessly young age. I know I think back to the kids who already were ostracized at a young age and wonder whatever became of them. (Courtney Love, a talented but troubled soul, once commented that she was the target of that heinous “germs” game kids liked to play, and probably still do.)

In my community, part of the affection for the school stems from the building itself. It has a beautiful setting and exterior, but had a goofy design inside that was probably screaming to be gutted and renovated decades ago. There were a couple classrooms where you had to go up about five stairs and then down about five stairs just to get to. Back stairways wound around to various rooms and offices. I always felt sorry for the kids on crutches.

People who had to send their kids to school here nowadays have way less affection for this building than the natives, and I understand that. It was a mess, it had hazards and was built at a time when people thought disabled kids shouldn’t be out in public, much less at a public school.

That made for quite a divide when it came time to decide what to do about the school. I expressed my affection for the building and was smacked down with a “Oh, you’re one of THOSE people,” from a young mom in my neighborhood. Indeed, many people who wanted it saved probably hadn't seen the inside of it for decades. Something had to be done.

For the record, I just didn’t want the building razed; it didn’t much matter to me if it remained a school or not. It sits on the crest of a hill with a beautifully landscaped “campus” that can be seen from my neighborhood six blocks away. Part of the town was built around it. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its Prairie School design came from noted architects Claude & Starck, and if those names don’t ring a bell perhaps the names of their friends and associates Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright do.

Preservation never comes without a furious debate, and the school was no exception. It will remain the same on the outside, it will be completely different on the inside and nothing anyone does will ever change the memories of those who once loved being inside that school so very much.

So yes, I want to run through the halls of my grade school. Especially once they get all those funky staircases out of there.

Stairs that must have shaken every time dozens of children went up and down them.

The fate of this beautiful vintage tile, in a hallway by the gymnasium built in 1941, is unknown.

Tackles, Turf Toe and Tears

 The writer on the left, getting tips from the kicker on the right.

(Wanting to write about the most important thing in Wisconsin right now -- Recall? What recall? The Packers are 10-0 -- my thoughts go back to a few Novembers ago when I was hanging out at Lambeau Field with the Packers themselves. This story first appeared in The Capital Times in 2008.)

 ...

What makes a woman cry? You'd be surprised.

It's not the umpteenth viewing of "Beaches," nor the theme from "Titanic." It's not the sight of her youngest child walking across the stage at graduation.

No, it's sitting amongst 330 women and having your number called as the winner of an autographed Green Bay Packers football, still smelling of the felt-tip markers from the signatures of the players who just scribbled on it.

That's how serious the women are about the game and their favorite team at Football 101, the annual women-only clinic hosted by the Green Bay Packers at the end of November.

My friend Patty is one of those serious football fans and somewhat sheepishly asked me if I wanted to go. She needn't have worried. A chance to go to Green Bay to run through drills with actual Packers and hear their take about life in the NFL? A no-brainer.

"Sign me up," I told my friend.

The biggest misconception about sports is that it's a guy thing. But women love sports. Maybe not in the same proportion as men, but certainly with the same passion. And it's not just about who's cute, although there were a few whistles in the Lambeau Field banquet room when Packers equipment manager Red Batty held up Aaron Rodgers' pants during a demonstration on the team's gear. My guess is that wouldn't happen if he were talking to the Rotary Club.

That passion is why chairs were jam-packed into that banquet room for the first part of the 10th annual event, which is typically a sellout.

"Have you been here before?" asked the woman sitting next to me.

I hadn't, I replied.

"Oh, you are going to love it," she said. She certainly did; she was the one who about two hours later won the autographed football and had to dry her tears of joy.

Football 101 begins with players, their wives and others with team connections discussing what they do and take questions.

After Batty's fascinating presentation ranging from what players wear and why or how they stay warm, six players' wives spoke, followed by their husbands. And before anyone thinks this was a giant sporty "Oprah" show, the cheesiest question came when emcee/linebacker Brady Poppinga asked the wives how they met their husbands.

No, the women in the crowd couldn't be bothered with such trivial matters. One woman asked a player to differentiate between the nickel package and the dime package and wanted an explanation of the Cover-2, a defensive alignment. Another wanted to know the difference between a regular formation and the slot formation. The leverage penalty was another topic for discussion.

People magazine, this was not.

Another asked center Scott Wells about the changes in the facemask penalty this season; Wells didn't know the penalty had been changed.

"When my facemask is grabbed, no one cares," he said.

As interesting as those sessions were, the real highlight of Football 101 is the drills. From Lambeau, we marched across the parking lot to the Don Hutson Center to learn first-hand from the Packers. If any of them were bummed to give up a Saturday teaching mostly middle-aged women the finer points of football, it never showed.

When I was a kid, we had the biggest backyard around and drew kids from all over town to play football there. So I once was confident enough in my skills to enter a Punt, Pass and Kick competition when girls just didn't do that kind of thing.

But that was back when elephant pants were cool and gas was 39 cents a gallon. Now, I just hoped I wouldn't trip on something and burn my chin on the artificial turf.

The first drill, not so bad. Wide receiver Jordy Nelson talked us through a rushing drill in which we had to high-step through the ropes just like the pros. I did not trip. These days, this is how I measure success.

Then, it was on to kicking. Mason Crosby taught us about the sweet spot on the ball - which, if hit squarely, provides the best results - and gave us an extra-point demonstration. Then it was our turn. I took a few steps to the right to come in as a left-footer. Such detail was hardly necessary; I stubbed my toe on the approach and the ball dribbled weakly off the tee. Shame, yes. Turf toe, maybe.

Shortly afterward, a huge cheer went up in that corner of the facility. Someone had made an extra point.

"Must have been one of the young ones who played soccer in high school," a 50-something woman in my group said.

Next up: defense. What Wells didn't know about facemasking he made up for in blocking schemes. He gave a detailed presentation on the three-point stance, the team's formations and how to bowl your way past someone. That might have come in handy for those who went shopping the day after Thanksgiving.

What I flubbed on the extra point, I made up for as a receiver. Routes taught by James Jones, Ruvell Martin and Jermichael Finley all resulted in caught passes on my part, with the players doing the throwing. And I rather enjoyed taking out the tackling dummy after running Poppinga's drill.

It's been a long time since I spent a Saturday tossing around a football, and it certainly never crossed my mind that I'd ever toss one around with a Packer. But for $65, I got great memories, some cool stuff and a great day in Green Bay.

Unfortunately, I also got a sore left foot from the worst kick ever and a few extra aches and pains the next day. That's all right. I may not be able to kick and it might take me a while to come up out of that three-point stance, but at least I knew months ago that the NFL had changed the facemask penalty this season.