If you disagree with this, I'll forgive you

Driving home Friday night, at some point the juxtaposition of two otherwise seemingly unrelated thoughts drew me to an unlikely conclusion.

The first thought centered around Andrew Bynum, who was returning to play against the 76ers that night. As backround, when the 76ers traded (an awful lot) to get him last season, he was one of the top players in basketball. It was only after getting him that the extent of an injury he had became partially, and eventually fully known. As a result, he never played a single game for the 76ers and the fans have made it clear on sports talk radio that they resent him for it, not just because they were so excited to get him and their team gave up so much for him and ended up with nothing, but because it was alleged that after he had one bad knee and had missed half the season, it was reported that he then hurt his other knee...bowling! With half the season yet to play! And then when the season ended there was a youtube video posted of him dancing the salsa in Spain, on the knees he supposedly couldn't play on.

But now with his contract ended with Philly, he is playing for another team, and is just the proverbial shell of his former playing self, averaging half the minutes and less than a quarter of the points and rebounds he had before he was hurt.

So there was an expectation, since met, was that the 76ers fans were coming to the game more to boo Bynum than to cheer their hometown Sixers. Even though I am a fan of the Sixers and understood why the fans were upset, I felt myself feeling more sorry for the player than angry with him. And, as I say, I felt a certain amount of sympathy for him.

My second line of thinking was being upset with myself for some relatively innocuous thing I'd said earlier that day. I can't even remember what it was now, but it was similar to something I'd said earlier in the week that I still wish I could take back.  I was walking into a meeting with a prospective Head of West Chester Friends School and was introduced as the President of the Board, which I virtually never identify myself as, usually just saying I'm a member of the Board, lest it seem I'm trying to impress anyone.

Someone else in the room, who I admire greatly, then said "He's a very important person!" And when I looked at her, she had her usual big smile that let me know she was just kidding me, but complimenting me at the same time. All I could think of, having somewhat being put on the spot, was that she was right, but only in terms of Trev and Emma and the rest of my family, but under the pressure of the moment, with all eyes on me, all I could think to say was "I am, to some people."

It wasn't until 5-10 minutes later that I thought back to that exchange and thought - what a dolt! That was worse than if I had just identified myself as the President in the first place. It both seemed condescending and self-righteous in one badly played sentence. And I've been trying to find a way to go back to her to apologize ever since. But then I think it seems self-absorbed to even come back to it at all and she has probably long forgotten it.

And so I'm kicking those thoughts around, thinking how unnecessarily hard I'm being on myself when it hit me:

Liberals are much more forgiving of other people than they are of themselves and conservatives are more likely to be just the opposite.

I have a feeling there are just enough obsessed teenage Taylor Swift fans, if any of them were to google deep enough into her name that she'll come across this, that I feel obliged to pass along this story from a friend, who is also a Friend, for those most devoted fans, who might actually be interested in this, unlike my 4-5 regular readers, not including the dozen or so who've visited from the Russian Federation, according to the Live Traffic Feed down the right hand side of my page.

I had heard from my F/friend Howard that a mutual friend had lived across the street from Taylor Swift when she lived up in the Wyomissing area. I'll only identify him as Taylor L., both because that is his name and because that is relevant to the rest of this story.

Actually, I'll let Wikipedia tell some background to the story, edited down somewhat:

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Swift, is a Merrill Lynch financial adviser.  Her mother, Andrea (née Finlay), is a homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. She spent the early years of her life on an eleven-acre Christmas tree farm in Cumru Township, Pennsylvania. When Swift was nine years old, the family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.

Swift's family owned several Quarter horses and a Shetland pony and her first hobby was English horse riding. Her mother first put her in a saddle when she was nine months old and she later competed in horse shows. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theatre. She performed in many Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. Swift then turned her attention to country music.

At the age of twelve, Swift was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You", and now began to focus on songwriting.
When Swift was fourteen, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift later described this as "an incredible sacrifice" for her family to make.

Swift performing at age 17 in 2006

Not being a close friend of Taylor L's, I  had never approached him directly about his story, but when we started emailing about something else having to do with Martin Luther King and Bayard Rustin, I decided to ask him if the story about his young neighbor was true.

Here is our exchange:

From: Jamie

Sent: Monday, August 26, 2013 4:26 PM
To: Taylor L.
Subject:

Thanks for that, Taylor. I’m more impressed however, by the rumor that Taylor Swift grew up across the street from you? Now THAT’s historically significant! (kidding, but still cool if true.)

 

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From: Taylor L.
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2013 5:46 PM
To: Jamie McVickar
Subject:

Jamie,

It is not a rumor, Scott Swift bought the small truck farm across the road from us and later the small farm adjacent to us on our side of the road. Some years later he married Andrea, then Taylor and her younger brother were born. Scott was under privileged in that he did not grow up on a farm so I taught how to do a lot of things around his farm and helped him with the care of a part of the orchard.

The Swifts had horses and built a riding and jump rink. Taylor learned horses at an early age and seemed quite good with them. Other than the horses and a monster swing set Scott built for her, she was not an out-doors girl. Some years ago a TV program featured Taylor correctly explaining pictures of her on the horse farm on which she lived as a child. The announcer then thanked Taylor for describing her horse farm in Wyomissing. (Those living in the 1/2 to 30 million dollar close together houses in Wyomissing make sure there are no horse farms in Wyomissing.)

The Swifts sold the farm and moved to a rented house with one of the best addresses in Wyomissing when Taylor was about 10 years of age. Her publicity says she is a Wyomissing native. She is a Cumru Township, Freemansville Road, native and only lived in Wyomissing about four yeas before moving to Nashville, TN. Scott and Andrea were good level headed people, it is not surprising that Taylor seems to be the same.

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From: Jamie

Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 11:37 AM
To: Taylor L.
Subject:

Wow, this is a great story, Taylor, thanks. I saw a recent story, in the Inquirer maybe, or NY Times about the family who bought their house and is now selling it. The article gave the address and just for fun, I googled it and it was more McMansion than farm, so I wondered about the farm references until I read your email which better explains things. I am a fan of her music and her approach to her celebrity status, which as too many young women (Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus) have shown, is not an easy road to navigate.

Obviously her parents showed their appreciation for your help on their farm by naming their first born child after you. J

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From: Taylor L.
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 9:16 PM
To: Jamie McVickar
Subject:

Jamie,

Your saying "naming their first born child after you" may be an overstatement.  When she was born, Scott came over to announce the birth and her name, he said that one of the names Andrea considered was Taylor (Taylor was becoming a popular girl's name at this time) and Scott said I was a pretty good fellow and thus he had no objection to the name Taylor.

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So now you know the rest of the story. Kinda cool.

This is no great revelation, but I think that whether or not you like a movie has a lot to do with the mood or mental space you are in when you see it. I once saw a movie called Far Away with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman that I absolutely loved, but it didn't get good reviews, and in retrospect probably wasn't as great as I thought it was at the time. But I saw it with a girl I was really into at the time and it was a beautiful spring evening and we had a really fun time that night.

Similarly with Saturday Night Fever, as Mike Rellahan continues to torment me about. I think I saw that movie 3 times when it came out and it was at the right time in my life. I can remember trying, even successfully to some extent, to copy some of the dance moves, OK maybe just one in particular, from that movie in parties I went to at Earlham that spring, my senior year. (If I tried the same move now, I would permanently rip most of the ligaments and cartilage in both knees.)

So, all that is prelude to explaining my reaction to this 9+ minute video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_nature_beauty_gratitude.html

It is a TED Talk and deals primarily with the importance of making the most of every day we live. Well, we can't really do that in the way we think we should. I can't go out everyday and do whatever my heart desires. We all, most of us, gotta earn a living, gotta take care of our families, gotta write our blog posts (more often than some of us actually do).

But I'm thinking more of the days when I don't have those responsibilities, primarily on weekends. My favorite time of every day is when my car pulls in at the top of our driveway coming home from work and I start the 10-yard walk up to our amazing house which always seems so full of all kinds of love and joy and energy.

As I said about 12 years ago when Cheryl, Ev and Liss moved in, that walking into our house each night was like when Dorothy stepped out of her black and white house into full-color munchkin land, not knowing what excitement was heading her way. For me it was true on a daily basis but also in the even bigger picture, where my life up until then had been black and white and now, with Cheryl and the kids coming into it, made it so full of color and excitement.

But getting back to the video and my weekends, as I say, my favorite time of every day is coming home from work, but my favorite time of every week is the first 2-3 hours after I wake up Saturday morning, when I go out and get the Philadelphia Daily News, bring it back, usually with a donut, tho since I started this diet I've been on for 45 days now, no donut, but still a big cup of coffee and I lie on my bed and read the paper, do the 5-star hard sudoku and just do plenty o nuthin. Then I slowly rev up to go out and do 2-4 hours of yard work, which I also enjoy way more than I ever thought I would.

But so the point is that I wonder if I'm being too selfish with my Saturdays, especially with two growing children in the house. Am I making the most of that time? I've practically lost the window with Trev who would rather spend all day on Minecraft, but once we boot him off, he'd probably still do something with me if it were interesting enough. And Emma would love to do just about anything outside the house, I think.

Last Sunday at 1:00, another of my great selfish joys came along: watching an Eagles game on a Sunday afternoon, which has gotten harder and harder to do since I started this awesome family. I was all set, ready to watch, had made a nice lunch for myself, had cleaned up the kitchen, done an hour or so of cleanup outside, when Emma came up to me and asked if I'd go down in the yard and play soccer with her. I sighed and said No Freakin Way! The Birds game is on!

Just kidding, I went down and kicked the ball around and played on the swingswith her and walked around the property a little and then came back and watched the game. Now I have to admit, the decision was made easier by my being able to DVR the game to watch later, but having watched that video above, at least it had a short term impact on me.

My goal now is to make it a long term change as well. Ask me about it sometime down the road to see if I kept to it, please. Oh, and give yourself a gift of taking 10 minutes to watch that video, please.

Spending time with two of my favorite women in a bar last night (sounds like a country song is about to git writ), my wife and also my sister, Laurie, we came to a little bit of a revelation.

There was a big campaign a year or so back called the It Gets Better Project (http://www.itgetsbetter.org/), intended "...to communicate to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth around the world that it gets better."

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgFml9ZHtE4&feature=player_embedded

And I think it goes without saying that that message is equally applicable to anyone in those tough teen years, especially, when you question where you fit in and wonder if you're doing "it" right...doing everything right...doing anything right.

And to anyone under the age of about 30 who is going through a bad stretch, it's a great message to tell them that It Gets Better.

What Laurie, Cheryl and I realized last night is that past a certain age, when one is going through a bad stretch, particularly with family or health problems, the way to feel better about your current situation?

It Only Gets Worse.

So, remind yourself: These are the good old days!

I don't know which part about Miley Cyrus' VMA performance I liked least:

 - how raunchy it was and the message it sends to both young males and females about what is expected and is acceptable for a young woman to do in public, or

 - that that was my reaction to it.

It makes me sound like our parent's generation used to sound talking about anyone from Elvis Presley to Madonna. And things like that don't get better in future performances, they only get worse, especially given the impact on TV ratings and the publicity they generate for the performer. So, we have that to look forward to.

On the other hand, there was a story on Huffington Post yesterday showing clips from Miley's new video coming out soon, featuring her naked on a wrecking ball (yes, you read that right) and well, yeah, I clicked on it and watched (and no, I'm not including a link here). 

But she kept her tongue in her mouth so it was fine.

Most people love fireworks. I never really understood why until I figured out a week or two ago that I like fireworks sort of in the same way I like sex.

The first 10 minutes or so of fireworks is like foreplay. It's fun and all, but I'm mostly just looking forward to the grand finale.

At least until I met Cheryl that is! (Seriously.)

Sometimes I think my kids will get a kick out of this blog some day when they stumble across it and then there are posts that make me hope they never find it...and after reading this one, they will probably feel the same way.

Miscellaneous thoughts, all in one post, since none of them seem worthy of their own post:

Jamie's Rules:

 - The word "dish" should only be used in relation to food and never to words, as in: Matt Lauer dishes on Katie Couric! The most annoying thing about the way this has come to be used is that, in the unfortunate event one should try to read such drivel, it is mostly just the first person describing something about the second person that none of us would associate with our usual expectation of what we might see.

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Why are only women ever described as being "sassy" or having sass? I guess a male can sass someone: "Don't you sass me, boy!", which along with the phrase "Oh no, you didenh!" has to be said in the supposed tongue of a large black woman, but you'll never see a male described as sassy anywhere.

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According to my analytics, someone found my blog by googling: anuhka.sex. I'd like to be able to say that I just really don't even want to know, but I guess I did since I googled it. Nothing in google matched those words, but the bigger question is how the heck did that bring them to my site?

Other ways people got here? By googling: sports and sex and Taylor Swift in a bra. Sorry to disappoint you guys.

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In the past week, 93 people from Russia have visited my site.

Ochin Pryatna, (former) comrades! Menya savute Jamie!