Lucky enough to have had one great sports event

It isn't often that I overlook books by my favorite authors.

When Dan Jenkins died recently at the age of 90, I wasn't surprised.

Hey, 90.

But with everything of his I've read, all the way back to "Semi-Tough," I somehow missed the semi-memoir that came out five years ago.

Much of what was in there was in one earlier book or another, but it was still a great read.

One of Jenkins' stories of his childhood in Fort Worth was of the amazing 1937 college football game between undefeated Texas Christian and undefeated Southern Methodist. SMU won the game, but each school was named national champion in different polls.

"Two national champions from Texas, and I'd seen them play. Every kid should have a big sports event in his life."

Terrible tragedies remind us of fragility of life

This is a horrible story, and I have to tell it in a way that preserves the anonymity of the subject.

You'll understand why.

I have a friend from back home in Virginia that I haven't seen for nearly 40 years. Around the time we lost touch, one of her three brothers died after a long illness.

I remember thinking how sad it was. I have four younger siblings, and losing any of them would be tragic to me.

Anyway, she and I lost touch. But as has happened with so many people in this age of social media, we established contact a few years ago through Facebook. We're both past 60 now, although I'm further past it than she is.

My four siblings -- ages 57 to 67 -- are alive and kicking, and her two remaining brothers were doing well too.

Until recently.

'Best' accomplishments bring on mixed emotions

What's the best thing you ever did?

This isn't a moral question. I'm not talking about right or wrong, or good or evil.

It's about doing something and trying to do it better and better. Like being a golfer and trying first to break 100, then 90, then 80 ...

Or writing a book, and then writing a better one and then one that's even better.

9th hole, Sun City Peachtree

Or improving at something and achieving a personal best. It took me five years to break 100 and another four or five years to break 90.

By the time we moved to Georgia, I had been playing golf for more than 15 years. Playing regularly on the same course, a course suited to my game, I reached the point where at my very best, I could break 80.

On my very best day, I played nine holes and came within one shot of a par 36. I shot eight pars and then bogeyed the ninth hole. The great irony there is that the ninth hole is the one I par most frequently of all.

That was a wonderful two hours, but I have equally wonderful examples that took much longer.

Seaver sadly facing indignity of the 'Long Goodbye'

Dementia.

It's a horrible word, one that seems to become more relevant to us as each year passes.

Not just more relevant, either. Sadder.

The great Tom Seaver

It's actually a strange word in this context. "Demented" used to mean mentally odd in some strange way. There is a syndicated disc jockey called Doctor Demento who plays all sorts of bizarre songs.

Calling someone demented was basically a synonym for weird or twisted. It had little to do with aging.

Of course it was also a medical term. Dementia doesn't refer to one specific disease, but to a family of diseases that result in memory loss or impaired judgement.

The best-known disease is Alzheimer's, largely because of President Reagan. When people first started talking about Alzheimer's, some folks misheard the first word and called it Old-timer's Disease. Cute.

Scary movies used to be a lot scarier

It's fascinating the way we remember things.

If you were to ask me if I was a fan of the horror genre -- both books and movies -- I'm not sure how I would answer.

Classic horror, sure. I've watched nearly all the great old films from the '30s and '40s, from "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" to the gloriously goofy "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." Two of the very earliest -- in the 1920s -- were "Nosferatu" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," both of which I was fortunate enough to see in theaters.

Editor's note: Not, of course, in their original release.


Just because the 1920s seems like ancient times to me as I approach age 70, to my children's generation the '50s is when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

It isn't as if there haven't been great horror films since then, some of them great movies -- Hitchcock's "Psycho," Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby," Friedkin's "Exorcist." All three won Academy Awards and were nominated for others.

Some films that are thought of as great horror movies are actually genre-crossers. Is "Alien" a horror movie or does it fit better into the science-fiction pantheon?

Late nights not the same since Johnny Carson left

Doc Severinsen, Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson

Last night I watched a tape of Johnny Carson's final show on YouTube. I had only seen it once before, on May 22, 1992, on the television in the living room of my last apartment just off Beach Blvd on the way down to Huntington Beach.

In four months, I would meet Nicole and my life would change completely. But I was covering the Dodgers that spring, and I usually got home just in time to see the late night shows. Actually, I had been watching Dennis Miller on Fox that spring, back when he was funny.

But when the announcement came that Johnny Carson was retiring, that May 21 would be his last show with guests and the following night would be an hour of reminiscing, I wasn't about to miss either one.