Quick thoughts on O'Sullivan, Billy Butler and the hit & run, why my temper is still a problem at 62, and happy news of a new second grade teacher

Sean O'Sullivan is right. The major leagues are no place to work out a new delivery or a new pitch. Omaha or N.W. Arkansas would be much more appropriate.

With a good friend and maybe 2,000 fans I watched Wednesday's afternoon game at the stadium. We were praying -- out loud -- in the bottom of the ninth the brain trust would let Billy Butler swing away, rather than strapping him with a hit & run request or, worse, a sacrifice bunt.

They didn't, and it paid off.

But we were left with sabermagician questions for which I'm sure somebody has a rational, unemotional answer. How often is hit & run profitable? When, and in what circumstances?

Butler had previously been tied in knots by a hit & run request. Anybody in the park could see it was an attempt to prevent Butler from hitting into another doubleplay. Of course, it caused him to hit directly into a doubleplay.

For god's sake just let the big boy hit the ball.

I played lousy myself last night. It's crazy to do this at 62, but, well... I figured out why. I let my temper drive me rather than my legs and hips. I don't like being pushed around and I let the young man who did it know, but I couldn't leave it there. And I paid the price. In addition, I hit one to the fence in BP and another to the fence in my first at bat and I think I just got enamored with the fence rather than that elusive spot about an eighth of an inch below center on the ball.

If you know what I mean.

Then, as I was settling in to sleep, setting the alarm on my cell phone, I noticed a text message. My daughter is the new second grade teacher at the elementary school in her town! Immediately I could hear this conversation:

Erik: Who you got this year?

Willie: Mrs. Morton.

Erik: Lucky.

--Loffllin -- almost too proud to be healthy...

Photograph courtesy the Kansas City Star. Could not find a credit line for this wonderful image anywhere on the page. My guess is John Sleezer.

Fortune cookie perspective

On January 1, I started a new blog called My Daily Fortune. Basically, what I'm doing is opening one fortune cookie every day in 2011 and following whatever that fortune tells me to do.

The blog has been a lot of fun. But I'd like to take the opportunity here, on the good ol' Henry Wiggen Blog, to step back and get some perspective on the experience so far. When I'm following the fortunes, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Fortunately, I've been getting a little bit of attention from local media outlets about the blog, which has been kind of crazy for me. For 10 years, I was on the other side, writing stories about other people. Being the subject of news stories has been eye-opening.

And I wonder if I made people feel as uncomfortable as I feel in the spotlight.

I will say that I was a newspaper journalist for my entire career, and the newspaper interview I did for My Daily Fortune was both the easiest and the most in-depth.

The TV interviews, on the other hand - those were a trip.

Channel 41 was the first to do a story. They invited me to their studio to be on the morning show. I was there about an hour and a half, and it's pretty interesting to see how much work goes into a two-minute live TV clip. All sorts of planning goes into it. The cameras have to be positioned right, the timing has to be perfect, the lighting has to be just so. You don't really worry about that too much in the newspaper world; yes, you have deadlines, but it's not nearly as intense as live television.

What surprised me the most was how much research news anchor Amy Hawley had done for the two-minute segment. She knew everything about the blog, and she was prepared to ask me a lot more questions than she had time for. I guess that's necessary: what if I had frozen up? What if I was only able to give one-word answers? If that happened, that two minutes becomes a lot longer for her.

The interview with Channel 4 was much different. They came to my house, which was a bit invasive, but mostly because I had to clean. The Channel 4 folks, while very nice, were also quite demanding.

That interview was also picked up by Fox News. Which was funny, because the news station that prides itself in being fair and balanced got a lot of the facts wrong. Not to say I don't appreciate the coverage; I really, really do, and the errors they made did nothing to take away from the blog. They called me a "Missouri man" (I live in Kansas) and they proclaimed that I was down on my luck and had no other choice but to put all of my faith in fortune cookies. That's not exactly the case.

But the news coverage has been - pardon the pun - a real fortune. I've got nearly 100 followers on Facebook, and I'm getting lots of hits on the blog. I had no idea whether it would take off or not, but so far it really has. Since this is sort of a "New Year's resolution" type story, the media attention may wane soon, but hopefully I can keep the ball rolling and make this thing popular nationwide by the end of the year.

Father Time is catching up to me

Not to pause the Zack Greinke-related dialogue, but I've been dealing with a bit of a confidence crisis recently.

I was born in 1979, which makes me 31 years old. According to some unscientific Internet research, I'm still four or five years younger than the average American. But over the past few weeks especially, I've been made to feel positively ancient.

I started a new job last month, and I'm in the middle of a seven-week training class. Of the eight people in my class, I am BY FAR the oldest person. I am years older than one of my trainers, and I am roughly the same age as another.

At work the other day, I was describing a jewelry purchase I made for my wife, who is one year younger than I, and one of my young classmates said the style I was describing was very appropriate for "older women."

Also at work, another co-worker and I were discussing Royals player Wilson Betemit. The co-worker described Betemit as "That old guy who played really well off the bench for the Royals last year." Betemit is two years and two months younger than me.

I write for another Web site, and one of the other writers on the site recently said, "I can't believe I've been writing professionally for a whole year now!" I've been writing professionally for nearly a dozen years.

In baseball terms, I haven't been prospect-age for nearly a decade. Fans wouldn't criticize me if I considered retirement.

I still feel young, at least when I'm not around the whippersnappers in my training class. And I'm sure the co-author of this blog would argue that I too fall into the whippersnapper category.

But I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm no spring chicken anymore.

And that's not any fun at all.

Rest In Peace

(Please, don't read this article and skip John's post here.)

When I was much younger, perhaps 15 years old, my family was coming home from a vacation. It was our last day on the road and much of Iowa and northern Missouri stretched before us. All of us were bone-tired, road weary and ready for a sleep in a familiar bed.

I asked my parents if they would make a detour. I wanted to drive about 45 miles out of the way to visit the small town of Van Meter, Iowa.

Van Meter is the home of the Bob Feller Museum.

My parents said no.

Even my baseball-crazy older brother didn't seem interested. They were all too tired to think about a long detour.

So I asked again. And again. And again and again and again and again and again and again until they finally agreed, just to shut me up. My father pointed the van west, destination Van Meter.

We arrived at the small museum and we were impressed by the beautiful but diminuitive structure. I was having the time of my life, but my relatives were underwhelmed.

Front and center among the exhibits featuring personal memorabilia of Bob Feller's life was a huge display case with a single wood bat inside. Strange for a museum dedicated to a pitcher.

It was Bob Feller's bat. But it was famous for something else. In 1947, Feller loaned his bat to someone else for a day during the Indians' visit to Yankee Stadium.

Yes. THAT bat.

So we browsed around for a few minutes and made our way to the gift shop. My brother and I purchased some postcards and souvenirs. When we paid, the elderly female cashier said, "Stick around for a little while. Bob'll be here any minute."

Seconds later, Bob Feller himself walked through the door.

Quickly, my brother and I bought more souvenirs and took them to the table where Mr. Feller held court. He promised to sign our items, and strongly encouraged us to make a donation to the museum. We did.

All of a sudden, Matt's crazy side trip wasn't so crazy. I was a hero.

That's my Bob Feller anecdote. I'll miss him, and I'll miss knowing that he's in Van Meter, Iowa, watching over his little museum.

--Matt Kelsey

Why I love baseball

My I-70 Baseball colleague Bill Ivie recently told me about a blog called The Baseball Docent. One of the missions of that blog is to ask people a simple question: Why do you love baseball?

What a beautiful question to ask about a perfectly imperfect game.

For me, and perhaps for many others, the answer to the question is not so simple.

I love baseball because my dad and my mom took me to games, back in the days when the Royals played respectable ball and you could take a family of four to a big-league ballpark for less than twenty-five bucks - parking and food included.

I love baseball because after the games, my brother and I would go stand around next to the visiting team bus and the home team parking lot, asking for autographs. More players said no than yes, but the ones who said yes - regardless of how they performed on the field - became our favorites.

I love baseball because of my grandmother. A first-generation American, she was born and raised in the small central Missouri town of Loose Creek, and grew up in the days of Ruth and Gehrig. She became a fan of the Kansas City Royals out of spite, for the exact same reason she voted Republican: her husband, the jovial town barber, told her she ought vote Democrat and root for the St. Louis Cardinals. My grandmother did the opposite. Our family friend Ralph Lynch took my grandmother to a playoff game in 1985, and bought her a Royals jacket. The jacket, and a commemorative Dwight Eisenhower plate, were her prized possessions. She wore that jacket every spring and fall until the day she died.

I love baseball because of that jacket.

I love baseball because of Ralph Lynch. Ralph was the kind of guy who would throw away caps when they became too worn out. Once, when he was over at our house, shucking corn and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon out of the can with my father, he decided his old Royals hat was too worn out and chucked it in a garbage barrel. I dug that sucker out of the trash and wore it the rest of my childhood.

I love baseball because of Bret Saberhagen. He was the kid pitcher on the Royals in 1985, and he went on to win a Cy Young Award and the World Series MVP. He was my favorite player, and still is, even though he sprayed bleach on reporters while playing for the Mets and wore his hair in a ridiculous perm.

I love baseball because of Game 7 of the 1985 World Series. A Cardinals fan tried to tell me recently that the Royals would have lost the series if Don Denkinger, the guy who blew a call in Game 6, hadn't been behind the plate for Game 7. The Royals won Game 7 by a score of 11-0. Cardinals fans are delusional if they think a different umpire would have changed the outcome of Saberhagen's complete-game shutout or the Royals' offensive explosion. But I digress... I love baseball because I was six years old during the 1985 World Series. My family watched the game from our living room, in the house where my parents still live. Ralph Lynch was there, too. My brother and I watched from the living room carpet, laid out on our stomachs, our heads cradled in our hands. When Darryl Motley caught the ball for the final out and Saberhagen leaped into George Brett's arms, we pounded on the carpet and screamed until our fists were sore and our throats were raw.

I love baseball because I love hating the Cardinals, and I love hating the Yankees.

I love baseball because of George Brett, the greatest player I ever saw. Years after he retired I witnessed him at an exhibition game. He was joking around with the crowd, signing a few autographs, and then he took batting practice and his expression became deadly serious. He whacked the ball all over the park, with that wonderfully ridiculous back-to-the-pitcher stance of his. I'll bet money George Brett could still hit .275 in the big leagues.

I love baseball because of birthday money. On my birthday, I would get $15 from my parents to spend anyway I liked, and my brother would get $10. On his birthday, we'd reverse it. One year on my birthday, I blew my entire wad on baseball cards. My brother had always had more cards than me, and it was sort of a sore subject. That night I came home and opened all my cards (probably 30 packs - they were a lot cheaper back then), and shoved all the gum in my mouth. Then, with a mouth full of sugary sweetness, I took my cards and stacked them up in a skyscraper. My brother stacked his cards up too. My stack, for once, was taller.

I love baseball because of the gum. My brother's friend once built a small box out of baseball-card gum and stored his valuables inside, because he swore the gum was fireproof.

I love baseball because of Buck O'Neil.

I love baseball because there's an old family rumor, largely propagated by my brother, that we're distantly related to Mickey Mantle.

I love baseball because my wife lets me teach her about the game, and she's come to love it, too, in a way only a perfect wife can, the kind of wife who doesn't just suffer her husband's obsessions, but shares in them.

I love baseball because it's the only game that matters. It's the only game I'll ever truly love. It's a game that belongs to me in the same way it belongs to all fans, and I belong to it as well.

-- Matt Kelsey

I-70 Baseball

For the past three months or so, I have been cheating on you, Henry Wiggen Blog. I'm having an affair with another website.

I've been writing about the Kansas City Royals at the new site I-70 Baseball. And in the short time the site has been "live," I've also become the co-host of a weekly radio show and the content editor for the site. It's taking up a lot of time, but it's been fulfilling, and I think the website has a strong future.

I-70 Baseball, an affiliate site of BaseballDigest.com, covers both the Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals, which fills a niche missing in the online world - especially since many people in this part of the country are fans of both teams. However, even if you're just a fan of one or the other, there's something new on the site about each team every single day.

To help fulfill that goal, I've enlisted the help of the other half of the Henry Wiggen Blog, Mr. John Lofflin. John's first article will appear on Saturday. Be sure to check it out. He writes a terrific, in-depth piece about Royals Hall of Famer Frank White.

I am forever grateful to John for giving us a helping hand. I know his presence will make the site more popular and much stronger.

Check out I-70 Baseball when you get a chance. I think you'll like it.

But remember, Henry Wiggen Blog, I still love you.

-- Matt Kelsey

PHOTO ESSAY: New Orleans

Apologies in advance for what's sure to be a much-too-long post, but I'll promise not to make it sound too much like "What I Did On My Summer Vacation."

Last week, on family business, my wife Jamie and I drove to Lake Charles, Louisiana, a straight shot south from Kansas City almost all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Since Lake Charles is only about three hours west of New Orleans, we decided to take the week and spend some time in the Big Easy.

In the six years, 364 days of our marriage (that's right - our seven-year anniversary is tomorrow, Sept. 20), this is the biggest vacation Jamie and I have taken since our honeymoon.

Since I have been accused of being a serial planner when it comes to travel, our plan for this trip was not to plan, only to make hotel reservations in the French Quarter and go where the wind took us.

From Lake Charles, you can take the quick, easy route to New Orleans via Highway 10, but we decided to detour south, through the bayou, on Route 90. This took us through some backwoods. I'm talking deep backwoods, the kind of places you only see in movies.

Off the highway we saw a sign for the TABASCO factory. The place where they make the sauce. I pulled off, thinking we'd just drive by the place and see what it was all about. Once we left the highway we noticed it was six miles out of the way. I was ready to drive on, but Jamie convinced me to head toward TABASCO-land.

What a smart cookie my wife is.

The six-mile drive took us to Avery Island, Louisiana, and in fact it's the place where all TABASCO Sauce is made. We had to pay a one-dollar toll to drive onto the island.

Our first stop was not the factory, but instead a place called Jungle Gardens, which was built by the McIlhenny family decades ago. It's basically a bayou nature preserve.

The place is absolutely stunning. They have tons of native plants and trees, including many covered with beautiful Spanish moss:

They have lots of alligators:

And they even have a 900-year-old Buddha statue with a fascinating back story:

Then we made our way to the TABASCO factory. It was your standard, run-of-the-mill factory tour, but the TABASCO country store was cool.

They gave lots of free samples, including some unique concoctions. A word of warning: Never, ever, under any circumstances, no matter what anyone else tries to say, NEVER taste TABASCO ice cream. NEVER EVER EVER! It's quite possibly the most vile thing I've ever eaten. On the other hand, a few drops of TABASCO in a Coke makes for a surprisingly refreshing beverage.

I would go back to Louisiana just to visit Avery Island.

Then we made our way to New Orleans.

Our hotel, the Hotel St. Marie, was in the French Quarter, on Toulouse, a half block off Bourbon Street. It's the off-season now, so the room was only about 60 bucks per night. Hell, you can't get a Motel 6 in Blue Springs for sixty bucks. The kicker, though, was the parking fee of $28 per night. It was worth it, though. Everything in the French Quarter was in walking distance.

Our first impression of the French Quarter was that it's pretty much a smelly, disgusting hole. The garbage smell was overpowering at times. That's not surprising; there's really no such thing as a "week night" on Bourbon Street. I can't imagine what it would be like during Mardi Gras.

Most of the bars along Bourbon Street are targeted at frat-boy, bachelor-party types, and the places were much, much sleazier than I imagined they would be. We learned a lot about human anatomy and subtlety in advertising. One establishment advertised to the masses via people holding signs emblazoned with the words "TITS 'n' WHISKEY."

The two famous drinks in New Orleans are the Hurricane and the Hand Grenade. My impression of these drinks and others in the French Quarter are that they're expensive, overly sweet and fruity, and not nearly as strong as people would like to think. I discovered this through rigorous testing over the course of our stay.

Our best drinking experiences were at the bars off Bourbon Street, the places that aren't quite flashy enough for the other tourists. Once or twice Jamie and I found ourselves as the only customers in some of these great local haunts.

We had some terrific food, including, of course, gumbo, jambalaya, poboys and etouffee. Jamie even found a handful of vegetarian options. And for breakfast one morning we ventured to Cafe Du Monde, known for their chicory coffee and beignets:


My favorite experience from New Orleans was buying a book. I purchased a copy of William Faulkner's "Soldier's Pay" at a little bookshop on Pirate's Alley. The shop used to be a house, and William Faulkner lived in that house when he wrote "Soldier's Pay."


That book will always be a cherished keepsake for me.

New Orleans is a dirty, stinky, wonderful place. I don't know if we'll ever go back again. But I'm sure as hell glad we went this time.

-- Matt Kelsey

Attachments

Today is my last day at a temporary job that has lasted for nearly nine months.

Over that span of time, I have grown attachments to many of my co-workers. Attachments that are much stronger than the ones I've formed with co-workers at other, non-temporary jobs, some of whom I worked with for three or four years.

It's just hitting me today how much I'll miss my friends.

I don't know what it is about temporary assignments. But this isn't the first time it's happened to me.

Ten years ago this summer (ugh... that makes me feel old), I was awarded an internship in Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Department of Education. The internship itself was fulfilling, but the best part of my summer was my off-work hours.

The internship was through Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society for community colleges. That year Phi Theta Kappa sent 20 students to D.C. for internships, and we all roomed together in a handful of dorm rooms at The George Washington University (our dorm building was named Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Hall).

Over that span, I came to know some of those 20 students better than I know people I grew up with and went to school with my entire life. And to this day I consider some of them my very best friends. Others in the group I've lost contact with, but occasionally I'll run a web search to try and find a phone number or e-mail address, and I often think back to those days with fond memories.

This current experience is a lot like that. I've discovered lifelong friends here.

The good news is, all of my co-workers are local. During my DC internship, I was with people from Chicago, San Fransisco, New York, Florida and all points in between. So there's a much better chance that I'll be able to stay in contact with these folks.

I don't know what it is about temporary assignments.

But the quick bonds you form are often more permanent than any other relationships in your life.

--Matt Kelsey

The Pig Roast

Every Labor Day weekend for the past 36 years, Charles and Darlene Lamberson of Logan, Iowa, have held an end-of-the-farming-season celebration on their spacious farm.

Chuck and Darlene are family friends, and my family has been attending this event, called The Pig Roast, since before I was born.

Even though Jamie and I haven't been in a few years, someone from the Kelsey family is always present, with only one or two exceptions over the three-plus decades of the Roast. This weekend, my wife and I were able to attend, and since my parents couldn't make it (only the third time they've missed in 36 years) and my brother and his wife were unavailable, Jamie and I were the family representatives.

I could write a book about how wonderful The Pig Roast is. But for today, I'm going to stick with the food.

Of course, the main dish is the pig. The pork is slow-roasted in a huge rotisserie firepit with an electric motor. They start cooking it on Saturday afternoon and it cooks all night before being served on Sunday. The pork is then sliced and chopped up fine and served up as sandwich meat. The pork is always tender, but this year it was indescribably succulent. They also cook a boatload of cubed, seasoned potatoes and onions in the firepit, and they were also exceptionally tender and delicious.

Then everyone brings something to contribute to the feast. The first year my parents attended, my mother asked Chuck what they could bring, and Chuck said, 'Bring a covered dish.' My mother did not know what that meant in pot-luck etiquette, so she brought an empty tupperware dish. It's become a running joke, and in addition to my wife's cornbread, we also toted an empty dish to the festivities this year to present to Chuck on behalf of my parents.

The side dishes range in variety from pasta salad to cole slaw to deviled eggs and fruits and breads and vegetables. All delicious, of course.

And then there's the dessert.

Here's one of the many beautiful things about the Pig Roast: they serve the food at about 1 p.m., but then they leave the buffet available all night long. People often bring more desserts than will fit the first time around, so after everyone gets a plate at 1 p.m., Darlene will place the rest of the desserts on the buffet throughout the night. So if you go in at 3 p.m. for a snack, you might find peanut-butter rice crispies treats that weren't there before; go back at 6, and you'll find a raspberry cheesecake.

Like I said, I could write a book about this.

But I'm not going to tonight. Even after the four-hour drive home, I am still stuffed to the gills. I'm going to go rest in my easy chair, and I may never eat again.

... Who am I kidding? The next Pig Roast is just 12 months away.

--Matt Kelsey

Another opinion on the "Awards Culture" at newspapers; plus, a Thelma Lou encounter

John has written two terrific posts (here and here) that referenced an "Awards Culture" at the Kansas City Star. As a former newspaper journalist myself, I have a few thoughts on the issue.

And a whole heap of mixed feelings.

There's no doubt that an Awards Culture exists at the Star and elsewhere. You can always tell when the Star is trying to win an award, and I'm positive the editors and reporters have conscious discussions about that very subject. The stories are always featured prominently, usually over several parts, and they may even include some sort of special logo to accompany each piece. These days the content continues online as well.

Here's my confession: I've done the same thing.

I wrote and assigned stories with the intention of using them to win journalism awards.

Here's the kicker, though, in my experience: writing to win awards can often produce high-quality, thoughtful journalism, but ironically, it rarely translates into actual awards.

I won several journalism awards over the course of my career, and not one of them was given to a story I wrote with the intention of winning an award.

There are a couple borderline cases, though. The most recent is a story I wrote in 2004 for the Wynne (Ark.) Progress. I was editor of that publication for about four months. During that time I met a woman named Leigh Smiley. Her son, Jeremiah, is autistic. Leigh and her husband Shannon were trying to raise $10,000 to buy a very special guide dog for Jeremiah.

After I interviewed the family, a very surreal feeling overcame me, the thought that if I wrote a good story, I was going to help this boy get his dog. But also, I thought I might win an award.

Both things happened. Jeremiah got his dog, and I won an award, honorable mention for feature writing from the Arkansas Press Association. To this day I consider the 1,300-word story the best thing I've ever written.

Another time at another newspaper, the Platte County (Mo.) Citizen, I met a historian who was chronicling the Interurban Railroad, which ran through the Kansas City area in the 1910s through the 1930s. I wrote a story about the railroad, and the historian's quest to save a historic interurban bridge. I researched the story for two months before I wrote a single word. During that process I got the feeling that I might win an award. We published the story over two parts, and afterwards we printed it up in a little booklet.

Again, I won an honorable mention for feature writing, this time from the Missouri Press Association.

That same year, something strange happened. The MPA gave out two honorable mentions in the feature writing category that year, both of them to me. The other award was for a story I wrote about a lady who built dollhouses. To me, the story was unremarkable, and certainly not written with any award intentions. I don't even remember submitting it for consideration.

And that's usually how it works. The awards are given to stories that exist organically, and not the ones created artificially just to win awards.

Every other award I've won in the business in three different states was for an "organic," not "artificial," story.

Still, though, I think there's a case to be made for writing to win awards. Let's take the Star's current feature about the Kansas City Mo. School District. Would that story have been written if the author and editors didn't hope to bag a trophy? Probably not.

If journalists are cranking out high-quality stories that engage readers and get people talking, does it really matter what their intentions are?

I don't know the answer. But the Star feature reminds me of one last incident to share.

I was once the editor of the Wednesday Magazine in south Kansas City. That job didn't last long either; I was fired for writing a column that angered an advertiser. But before that, I hatched a plan to write a year-long feature story about Southwest High School, which at the time had been converted into a charter school. I was going to chronicle the first-ever graduating class of Southwest by focusing on five extraordinary students. The five-part series would run at the beginning of each quarter and at the end of the school year. I also wanted to dive into the history of Southwest, which had produced some amazing graduates: director Robert Altman, actor Chris Cooper, authors Calvin Trillin and Evan S. Connell ("Mrs. Bridge"), and others.

The series allowed me to conduct my favorite interview of all time, a phone interview with a woman named Betty Lynn. That name probably doesn't mean anything to you. But Betty Lynn, a Southwest grad, played Thelma Lou on "The Andy Griffith Show."

That's right. I got to interview Thelma Lou.

I was canned after the second part of the series was published, and my successor didn't finish what I started.

As I stated before, I have mixed feelings about the "Award Culture." I think it can produce good quality journalism that wouldn't be done otherwise. But it's also a slippery slope, and can lead to situations like the Jason Whitlock ordeal at the Star.

This is just one man's opinion.

--Matt Kelsey

It's good to be back

Whenever I read Steinbeck, or Robert Penn Warren’s “All The King’s Men,” or “The Professional” by W.C. Heinz, or when I read John Lofflin’s post about the death of his beloved cat Moses, for a few minutes I feel like giving up as a writer, because I know I’ll never be that good.

The feeling doesn’t last too long, though. Sometimes I snap out of it by reading something poorly written, like the dreadful “Sons of Fortune” by Jeffrey Archer, which I just suffered through on AudioBook. Other times I can circle back and draw inspiration from great writing.

Either way, it’s good to be back. And it’s great to read my friend John’s posts again.

Just like John, I have a lot to talk about. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this blog is a lot different than it was before.

I’ll be posting more soon.

-- Matt Kelsey

Something more on the personal side -- tune out if it makes you goosey

Disclaimer:

I'm not sure I want to go here with this blog but with some trepidation, I'm going to dip a toe into the really personal.

Something happened to me this summer. I've changed. I have nothing left to accomplish for myself. No desire to accomplish anything. It has always been wonderful to see a student do something she has not been able to do before. The desire for that remains. But I have lost the desire, the drive, for anything for me.

I am not going to make more money than I am making now. The university has been clear about what it intends to expend for teachers. What’s more, the likelihood of students flocking to higher education diminishes with every new gadget. Moreover, the possibility of students flocking to journalism programs when every day they hear journalism is doomed is even more remote. We will never have the computer lab we have needed for 10 years, at least. I give. I will just use what I have and teach as well as I can for now. The program will just be what it is. Which, in my opinion, is darn good, if gadget impoverished.

I am not going to write the great American novel. Even if I had the idea – which I don’t – I would not have energy for it. I will just continue to scribble in my notebooks whatever comes to mind. Sex and the sensual come to mind often, so the notebooks will be lethal with them. It is, after all, what I write best.

I would love time to read, but I am not going to get it. Might as well bide my time until the day I retire, then start reading like mad. No sense beating on myself about it now, eh?

I can fill my days perfectly well staring out the window, watching for the chipmunk, the humming birds, the gold finches, the molting cardinals, the maddening squirrels, the butterflies, and the creature. The view is limited in scope – no Pacific Ocean out there – but unlimited in interest and excitement, precisely because it is alive and always in motion.

I have learned these things this summer. And now it is as if I had always known then.

--Lofflin... BTW: I suspected but did not know the video was fake. Thanks for ruining my day.

We're baaaaaaaaaaack.

Matt and I have not been very consistent posting to the blog this spring and summer but, as Charlie Parker wrote in song, now's the time.

We're baaaaaaaaaaack.

Posting hasn't been easy this summer. My laptop went tornado, afflicted with every disease you could identify and some unidentified ghosts in the cogs. And I spent much of the summer in annual magazine hell. The magazine will be out next week -- thank god. And thank god for a couple of dedicated students who rose to the occasion like seasoned professionals. A shout out to Jordan and Richard is in order.

I have a lot of pent up stuff to get off my chest. My god the world has turned nasty right in front of our eyes, hasn't it? It's almost too much to write about. So, I'll make this pledge: I'll only comment on the state of the world when I think I actually have something to add to the discussion / argument.

And I'll write some lighter stuff about the Royals and baseball in general when I feel it. I got involved in an interesting exchange on the Star's Web site recently over a nice story by Sam Mellinger about our reliever's discomfort with Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law. I'll go into some of that soon because I think it is a lightning rod topic in sports.

Today, I'll share something personal with you.

Here's the title for a novel: The Man who loved cats and baseball.

There is such a man. And he lost one of his beloved cats two weeks ago, which has placed a wet wool blanket over his world since. His sturdy, healthy, Moses had a heart attack and died at his very feet. The moment was a kick to the belly. He was standing at the mirror upstairs admiring a new pair of tennis shoes when the boy came racing around the corner as he had done a million times in his eight years. Racing around like that was his best way to start a good scrap with his less boisterous sister.

This time he spun out on the hardwood floor the way cats do in cartoons but something was wrong. He didn't get back up. His top half was motionless while his powerful back legs kept pumping, sending him around in circles. After about two turns the man grabbed him up thinking he had lost balance or was stunned, put him on his feet, and Moses collapsed again, sending terror down the man's spine. He ran to the back room, got a cat carrier and came back to put him in it. But the truth is, Moses was already gone.

Just like that. Gone.

The veterinarians made a valiant effort to bring him back, but Moses was gone. That's the only way to put it.

In three days, he would have curled up on the man's lap like a big hot rock and watched Home Run Derby all the way through. The man called him "little son" and liked to pat his athletic flanks the way you pat a dog. He had never taken a pill, never been sick, never had a problem. Until that moment.

At that moment, his heart gave out. That's all there is to it. And, of course, for the rest of us there is a message. Nothing is promised. Not one day. Not one hour. Not one minute.

A few mornings later, I was sitting on the front porch before dawn, watching the trees in the valley to the east sway in the wind. I shut my eyes for a moment then I opened them. The sun had breached the tops of the trees. And right in front of me all along was a huge, intricate spider web. I couldn't see it until the sun lit the threads. In grief, I thought about the spider and web, how the spider has to build the same damned web every day and how the spider lives a year or so to eat and die. Life, it seemed to me then, is not much different. I was thinking my life has no more meaning than this spider's life, no more permanence than her web.

Which might be one reason to start writing again. To at least leave something behind in the light.

--Lofflin

Monument brings me full circle

On the road yesterday, I found something special.

In my current job, about which I can’t go into specific details until it is all over in a few months, I am required to drive up to Kansas’ Indian reservations several times each week. It’s fascinating to explore the differences of the state’s four tribes: the Potawatomi, the Kickapoo, the Sac & Fox and the Iowa Nation. There’s a Kelsey family rumor that we descend from Native Americans on my father’s side of the family, although to date we have found no solid proof. However, my grandmother had the distinct facial features of an Indian, and my dad remembers his grandfather being a full-blooded Cherokee. It may be only a rumor. But all my life I’ve felt the connection to the Native American community, and I hurt for their historically horrendous plight at the hands of white European immigrants, from whom I am also descended.

I have taken on this task of learning more about Kansas’ reservations with a relish. But as of yesterday, I had not come across anything that carried true meaning for me.

On my way back in to the office, I had some time to kill. My plan was to stop in Highland, Kansas, where a sign points to a Native American Heritage Museum just three miles off the highway. I turned off at the exit, drove a mile north to Highland and realized the road to the museum was closed. No detour. Just closed. Back to the highway.

Passing near Troy, Kansas, I saw a sign directing travelers toward a “Peter Toth Indian Monument.” I’d seen the sign many times before in my travels, but I had never taken the trip to search out the monument. I had never heard of Peter Toth, and I couldn’t imagine what the monument would be like. So I ventured into Troy.

The little brown tourist signs guided me down a handful of rural roads until it appeared I was heading back out of town. I saw one last brown sign in the distance and sped toward it. The sign informed me that a local Boy Scout troop cleaned up the trash on that stretch of road.

All of a sudden I was back at the highway, and I had a choice to make. To my right was the road back to Kansas City. A U-turn would give me another chance at the monument. After a few seconds of hesitation I spun the wheel hard left and headed back toward Troy.

Finally I stumbled into downtown Troy, a pleasant but dead town square area surrounding the beautifully-renovated Doniphan County Courthouse. I passed by the monument once and didn’t even notice it.

Then, on the second swing around the square, out of my rolled-down window, I saw this:



That’s the Peter Toth Indian Monument. And this picture does it no justice.

The wooden sculpture, carved from a 250-year-old burr oak, is 27 feet tall. It’s almost as high as the courthouse. I slowly stepped out of the driver’s seat and reverently walked to the base of the monument, staring up in awe. It was beautiful. And in my heart, I felt the thrum of the ancient tribal drums tracing back through the generations.

A plaque directed me inside the courthouse for more information. Postcards of the monument were 25 cents apiece. A friendly employee (could have been the county clerk, for all I know) told me about Peter Toth, who is not, to my surprise, the subject of the monument, but rather the artist.

Toth, a Hungarian-born immigrant, has created a series of sculptures, called the Trail of the Whispering Giants, in each of the 50 states recognizing the Native American tribes across the country. Kansas’ sculpture is in Troy. I bought two dollars’ worth of postcards, took one last look at the Peter Toth Indian Monument, and drove home.

I had been searching for meaning in this assignment. Yesterday, in the land of our forgotten and obliterated hosts, I found it.

--Matt Kelsey

Heat-Moon revisited

Surprisingly, John and I haven't written much about William Least Heat-Moon on this blog. He is a favorite writer of both of us, and I think it's fair to say Heat-Moon has shaped my writing style, and maybe even my career, to some extent.

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Heat-Moon in 2008 for the Kansas City Kansan. Heat-Moon was in KC promoting his newest book, "Roads to Quoz," his fourth major travel book following "River-Horse," "PrairyErth" and the classic bestseller "Blue Highways."

I set up the interview through his publishing house (via Rainy Day Books) and was given an hour to speak with the man. I kidnapped him and his wife from their fancy Plaza hotel and took them to lunch at a truly Heat-Moon type of place, Rosedale Barbecue in KCK. We conducted the interview. I uncovered some of Heat-Moon's hidden KCK roots. And then we took a drive.

Three and a half hours later, I returned Heat-Moon and his wife to their hotel.

The story I wrote contained very little of the original, one-hour interview. Most of the piece was about the driving tour that followed.

As a journalist, that was one of the most rewarding days of my career.

Shortly after my interview with Heat-Moon, the newspaper went belly-up and I was laid off.

I bring all this up because I began a new (albeit temporary) job a while back. One day at the lunch table I noticed one of my co-workers reading a tattered copy of "PrairyErth." We struck up a conversation about William Least Heat-Moon, and it's been a common topic for us ever since.

The conversations reminded me that I'd been meaning to re-read Heat-Moon's classic, "Blue Highways."

So this week, I began to do exactly that.

I encourage any of our readers to pick up a copy and read it. You should be able to find it at any local library or bookstore.

I'll close today with this nugget of wisdom from "Blue Highways," a strong statement that sums up my own thoughts about the Christian missionary movement, particularly as it was used against the Native Americans:

Take the land, take the old ways, Christian soldiers, but please, goddamnit, leave me my soul.

--Matt Kelsey

Trash Day

-Photo via naturewalkboston.blogspot.com

Sometimes to hang on to sanity, you must seek out - or better yet, stumble upon - beauty in the little things.

Friday is our Trash Day. Usually I drag the barrel and the recycling bin to the curb Thursday night, because you never know what time the garbage crews will show up.

(Sometimes it's 6 a.m., sometimes the middle of the afternoon. But I am not criticizing garbage men and women. They have one of the worst jobs in the world. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. They say New York City garbage workers make six figures. They deserve it. But I digress...)

But I procrastinated this week and I took the trash out Friday morning before leaving for work. The sun was peeking over the horizon. The air was brisk but full of promise for the coming spring. I placed my barrel and my bin at the curb and glanced down the block.

House after house, from my block to the corner, the garbage receptacles were lined up in a perfect, arrow-straight row. Garbage can. Recycle bin. Garbage can. Recycle bin. Garbage can. Recycle bin. All the way to the intersection.

And in its own way, the symmetry of early-morning trash was beautiful.

Of course, when I arrived home, the barrels were strewn about the neighborhood, and all symmetry was lost to chaos. But for a brief glimmering moment Friday morning, the stars - and the cans - were aligned.

-- Matt Kelsey

"Dorky but cool"

That was the subject line of an e-mail sent to my by my much older brother this week.

And yes, the link he sent me was a little dorky. But for the most part, it was really cool.

Check this out. It's Ernest Thayer's classic baseball poem, "Casey at the Bat," told through baseball cards, courtesy of The Baseball Card Blog.

Not only is this a wonderful way to tell the story, but it's also a trip down memory lane for anyone who's ever collected baseball cards, and anyone who's ever stacked their cards up on the living room carpet to see if you had more than your brother.

--Matt Kelsey

A fly in the champagne

If I were a cynic - and some days, I am - I would look on a particular occurrence during the Kelsey family New Year's Eve celebration as a metaphor for the year that was 2009.

Jamie and I celebrated quietly at home this New Year's Eve. Part of that celebration included a stop by a local liquor store for a bottle of champagne (not the cheapest brand they carried, but the second-cheapest). In the minutes before midnight, we popped the cork and poured a couple glasses.

After the foam died down, we noticed a few floating bits in each glass. We assumed it was pieces of cork. So we fished them out and continued to pour.

Then, from the bottle and into Jamie's glass flowed a very large and very dead housefly.

The cynic in me says 2009 was a pretty damn fly-in-the-champagne year. In January, Jamie and I were both laid off on the same day, and we've each struggled to find work ever since. In part, we're victims of a dreadful economy which has torpedoed the local job market. Our bank accounts are low, and our debt is creeping higher all the time. To add insult to injury, Jamie's car was broken into a few days ago, and the crooks went on a trashy little shopping spree with our credit card (K-Mart, Walgreens, Smokes 4 Less and, to top it all off, lunch at McDonalds).

But the optimist in me sees 2009 a little bit differently. Jamie, for one, used 2009 to move one year closer to the completion of her education, and it looks like she'll be finished with her teaching degree in 2011 - which, now, seems right around the corner.

And I've been able to grow as a writer. For one, I started this blog with my friend John Lofflin (and we'll be celebrating our one-year anniversary later this month!). I've also completed some rewarding freelance writing assignments and, over the course of three very difficult and taxing months, I wrote a book. Hopefully, 2010 will be the year I sell that book. And now I have a dayjob, albeit a temporary one, which has raised our hopes and our financial prospects significantly.

But the best thing about 2009? Because of our joblessness, Jamie and I have been able to spend more time together than we ever have in our six-year marriage. And we've had a blast.

So last night we dumped the fly-tainted champagne down the sink, and we toasted the new year with a couple ice-cold bottles of Woodchuck Draft Cider. And we had a damn fine New Year's Eve.

I can't imagine champagne tasting any sweeter.

--Matt Kelsey

The things we find (literally) inside books

One of my favorite places in the entire world is the clearance section at Half Price Books (any Half Price Books, really, but the clearance section inside the Westport location is the best around). I love used books and used bookstores. Not only can you find amazing deals (no book over $3 in the clearance section!), but it's fascinating to flip through books that have been owned and read by somebody else. I'm sure somebody could write a whole book on the inscriptions found inside the front covers at a used bookstore (hey, that's not a bad idea).

Oftentimes I'll find things inside the books. Little scraps of paper. Matchbook covers stripped of the matches. Receipts. Postcards. They help to date and place the book and assign it in my mind to a specific reader.

Just now I'm cleaning up the wreckage in my study from one of my cats jumping on the top shelf of a bookcase and knocking the contents on the floor (that's for another post). One of the books that fell off was Mark Harris' "Diamond," which includes selected baseball writings by the author of the Henry Wiggen series. It even contains the complete screenplay to the movie version of "Bang the Drum Slowly." I bought it several months ago and stuck it up on the shelf.

As I prepared to slide the book back in its place, a long, narrow piece of paper fell out.

Across the top are the words "WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES." It's a customs declaration form from the Department of the Treasury, U.S. Customs Service.

The form was printed in 1995, but that doesn't really help to "date" the reader. The Customs Service might still be using this form. But it helps paint a picture of the reader. He or she is obviously an international traveler. The form is blank, so who knows if he declared anything at customs or if he just picked up the form to use as a bookmark. The book itself, which I purchased for $2, is in pristine condition, so the traveler either took good care of his books or he didn't read this one very much.

So I'll tuck the customs form back in the book, where it belongs. To me, the customs form is part of the book now. Maybe when I get around to reading it, I'll use the form as a bookmark.

To me, that customs form makes the book infinitely more valuable. And it makes me eager to go back to the clearance section and find what else is tucked between the pages.

--Matt Kelsey

Figure skating from Russia and the Times from New York at the breakfast table: And the danger of things plugged to wall sockets

THIS is an interesting time to be alive.

We are sitting at the breakfast table with blueberry muffins. Nothing extraordinary about the blueberry muffins, except they are good. Nothing extraordinary about the breakfast table. I built it nearly 20 years ago by hand and it has held up. Underneath the furniture I make -- which, I have to admit, is often crude but serviceable -- I pencil in my name and the date and anything interesting about the construction.

In this case I scrawled, "nearly gave two fingers for this table," on the bottom. A makeshift table saw bucked as I was cutting the legs. It was a Saturday, Kathy was listening to Prairie Home Companion upstairs, and I remember walking up from the basement holding my hand so the severed parts of my fingers wouldn't dangle, wrapping the whole bloody mess in a towel and saying quite calmly to my wife, "Kathy, we have a problem."

Houston, we have a problem.

Well, the hospital folks sewed them back on, if a bit crooked, some feeling returned -- certainly enough to type -- (fortunately it wasn't my throwing hand, my first thought as I walked up the stairs from the basement), and I've sworn off makeshift tools plugged to wall sockets.

What is extraordinary is this: She is watching figure skaters on the ice in Russia -- live -- on her laptop. And I am reading the New York Times on mine.

In between us are the blueberry muffins, a cup of strong coffee, a stack of contact sheets from a class field trip to the Park waterfall and Kathy's beading board where she is building a necklace.

When I'm feeling curmudgeonly about what technology has wrought, I need to remember this morning -- the pleasure and the reach of it.

-- Lofflin