This year, my friends and I have generally allowed that the Warriors failure to make the playoffs was foreordained. Several of us were hot on the Knicks, especially the two graduates of Columbia. But Philly boys like me had more trouble with the Knicks – it's just so hard to root for NYC teams! – despite the three Villanova guys. Needless to say, we can't root for the Celtics ever. So I'm kinda going for Indiana, kinda like Minnesota – anyway, it's an interesting playoffs this year. But then one of the Knicks fans wondered how I was going onto rooting for other teams. So I answered him.
A mark of fandom is to be able to move on!
Believe me, I'm much more interested in having gotten my tire fixed today and getting my stolen car back into shape (2011 Infinity M56S.) I was avoiding it, and now I'm re-embracing it. I love my car - the guys at the dealer all say, it's the Cadillac of their line, and if I'm getting rid of it to let them know to bid on it. Do I dare fall in love with it again?
As I sat getting it fixed, using my computer, in came a black grandmother, very heavy, and her two teen granddaughters. We talked about how she was lucky to be able to get into the dealer right away, because her car was failing on the highway as she drove from Modesto to San Jose - turned out to be a faulty battery terminal, and they fixed it. We asked the girls if they knew anything about early rock and roll - they didn't - or rotary phones, or stick shifts. We talked about popping the clutch and speed shifting. I knew more about 50's rock and oll than she did because she was born in 1953, she said. I told her I loved my car especially since my wife had picked it out for me as we shopped together, and how she had died, and the lady asked me how long we were married and I said over 40 years and I said I always let Ann pick out my cars for me and I teared up a little and she said that's a long time and I played channel 72 on Sirius XM coming back home, 50's music, rock and role and Patti Page and even Doris Day, and when it was the rock and roll I teared up again and even sobbed a little, and I thought it was really about Ann; I told the lady that she was my girl. Then I picked up Lola and took her to her guitar lesson on Lakeshore in Oakland and somehow the car and rock and roll of the 50's - Lloyd Price, even - and having my car and having my housekeeping and gardening couple, Antonia and José here, somehow it got me together.
So let's keep the Pacers-Celtics game in its place. I still have to root against the Celtics. It's on the list of essentials.
Which reminds me that Karim Emil Bitar, one of my friends on Twitter, Lebanese in Paris, expert in foreign policy and Lebanese politics, said that WiFi access had to be on the new list of Maslow essentials, maybe near eating and breathing. So life goes on.
Budd Shenkin
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