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  From The Other Guys to The Irving Club or How I Became a Women's Softball Coach Team Pic the season Kris joined  Front Row: Becky, Susan, Monica Middle Row: Colin, Lisa (above), Cindy, Michelle. Kris Back Row: Me, Mary, Darlene, Maureen, Amy, Bonnie Raitt, Ken. P laying with the other guys was a bit of a switch. Under Leon's tutelage, I had been well trained when and where to back up plays as a pitcher, particularly for throws coming in from the outfield. Unfortunately, some of my Other Guys teammates had obviously attended a somewhat different training program and as a result they often threw to one base while I was backing up another. After a few games it became clear to me that I just needed to back up where they were going to throw and not factor in where the base runners were going or might go.... I was having fun playing with The Other Guys for a season or so, when some of the women at the Rec Center, some of them girlfriends of the guys from the men's ...

From a Schefflera to an Other Guy Reaching for the sky? No letting go of a pitch - What Form! H eidi and I were living in San Francisco together in the Richmond District. That meant that her friends became mine and mine hers. The thing is I have always tended to keep more to myself and keep or interact with only a few friends at any given time. I don't meet a lot of people or make new friends easily. So when I am in a relationship I often get new friends through my girlfriend, as my girlfriends tend to be more social than me. This was true with Heidi. I only had a few friends who actually lived in the city at this point, but just about all of Heidi's friends lived in the city. Heck she grew up there and always lived there except for the time she spent attending Chico State. We did things with some of her long time friends as well as her friends from The Recreation Center for the Handicapped (The Rec Center), where she worked. The Rec Center, a nonprofit organization...

January 30th     Dad - 1943 or 44 N ext Monday, the 30th , marks the 35th anniversary of my marriage to Kris. 15 years ago on that date, our 20th anniversary, my father passed away. Early that morning while sleeping, I suddenly woke up from my sleep. I glanced over at the clock and realized it was still in the middle of the night so I went back to sleep. That morning I received the call from the family. Dad had passed away during the night and the time was within a couple of minutes of the time I had woken up and looked at the clock. Weird. Also weird, the month and day Kris and I first connected matched the month and day of my father's birthday. S o, my Dad's been gone for 15 years now and I still miss him. He was in an advanced stage of Alzheimer's as well as Parkinson's. He'd been that way for a year or so and was living in a care facility. I, of course, went back to New York for the funeral and services. I am the oldest of the three kids. I asked to give his eul...

Well, this is a good looking group - - - except for one person.... T his was one of Bill's common sayings/expressions. He often would use this when meeting up with another foursome at the golf course. I'm  one of Bill's son-in-laws. Bill frequently referred to me as his son-in-law. He did it so often that some of his golf buddies would sometimes address me as such. Like “Hey son-in-law, get the pin.” I met Bill in the fall of '86. My girlfriend at the time, Kris, and I drove up to Sacramento to visit him. When we arrived he had just finished vacuuming the carpet in his townhouse. Now you may be wondering how I managed to remember such a seemingly insignificant detail like that. Well, Bill was rather meticulous about things. When he vacuumed he was very careful to vacuum in a straight line so that the nap of the carpet was perfectly lined up. It looked a little like the freshly mowed outfield grass at a professional baseball park. It actually pained him whe...

At the County Jail and White Privilege I am currently involved in a class entitled “Conversations Around Race” and also in a group engaged in conversations about race. As a result I have been thinking about my “white privilege” and have been looking back at my life in this context. I have been recalling past experiences, examining how I have benefited from “white privilege” as well as recognizing my own culpability. I have thought about a number of past experiences in which I can now see that I was the recipient of “white privilege”. In some of these I was aware of my white privilege but in many others I was not. Below is an incident I thought about. It is a rather small thing but it also happens to be an incident where I knew being white was an advantage at the time it happened. I n the fall of 1978. I was working at General Business Systems (GBS). One of my first assignments was to make software modifications to a GBS developed offender/prisoner tracking system for the t...

Fun  With Heidi Me on my 35th birthday H eidi and I were always joking around. We laughed and made fun of ourselves, each other and everything that crossed our path. We could find humor in the most mundane activities. Heidi used to meditate and also chant. She had set up a shelf with a few things on it that she would face when she chanted. When she was done we would sometimes talk to each other as if we were chanting, slipping in something like “I need to go to the store” or “what are we having for lunch” in the middle of a chant mantra. Essentially we found no subject or activity off limits for humor. I find it interesting about what I remember and what I don't. Sometimes small events just stick with me and I have no idea why they do. For instance, in February of 1984 I turned 35. I was living in San Francisco and had a new girlfriend Heidi. Heidi would be moving in with me soon but on my birthday I was still in the studio apartment across the hall. On my bi...

Labor Day and the Beach Jones Beach L abor Day – It's the last holiday of the summer, was the last day of vacation before school started for me, and in New York, it's the last day the beaches are open for swimming. Growing up it was both a day I dreaded (because of school) and a day I looked forward to (because of the beach). L abor Day weekend is when Kris and I moved into the house we now live in. That was 25 years ago. Our neighbor Judy hosted a welcoming breakfast with bagels that Sunday morning for us. All the neighbors came to meet us and to welcome us to the neighborhood. We held our own open house for both our friends, family, and our neighbors a few weeks later. Since that time we have annually had a Labor Day party on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend where we have invited friends, family and all our neighbors. Each year we had a few more attendees until the count leveled off to about 40 or so. Judy then joined us as a co-host. With our backyards right ne...

Jensen & Chin and Beyond Gary and Mona of Jensen & Chin  I was living in San Francisco and working at Jensen & Chin (J&C) with my two friends Gary and Mona. My last day at Tymshare was a Thursday and I started with J&C the very next Monday. I would have liked to have take a little time off first as I had not really taken a vacation since my honeymoon with Kathy and that was only for a few days. I had pretty much been working non-stop for four years, only taking the occasional day off. But, the agreement I made with Gary and Mona was I'd start right away. I had previously planned a vacation to Hawaii with my brother Pete for later that summer. That was going to be my first vacation since that honeymoon back in the spring of 80. I was still working at GBS (General Business Systems) then. It was now 1984. Gary and Mona OK'd it providing I completed a number of pressing projects first. That did not seem like a problem as I felt confident I'd be ...

My Motorcycle and Me   " I don't want a pickle, I just want to ride my motorcycle", A Guthrie   - Honda CB750  I had been a passenger on a motorcycle a couple of times when I was young but the first time I rode a motorcycle myself was in Marysville, California, in August of 1971. I was in the Air Force stationed at Beale AFB. I had recently returned from my TDY assignment in Okinawa. My first wife Donna had left me while I was gone and took our car with her. Not having a car, I stopped by a car dealership one afternoon. A sales guy came out to assist me, like they always do, and he started talking. It wasn't long before the guy asked if I might be interested in a motorcycle as he had one he was selling. I didn't say yes but I also didn't say no. The next thing I remember was hopping into his car and heading over to his house. When we got there he opened his garage door and inside there were two motorcycles. He pulled one out and explained to me how ...