Michigan football memories
I think that I’ve mentioned before that I’m a Michigan football fan. I came of age during the Bo Schembechler years, and became the type of true-believer that only a pre-teenaged boy can be. I lived & died with what Bo’s boys did on the gridiron, rooting for them with a white-hot passion. (That my ardor for all things maize & blue cooled considerably just a decade later is a story for another day…)
Even better, because that’s when bigsis was attending UofM, I got to attend most every home game during the late 1970s. Football Saturdays in Ann Arbor were magical & larger than life. Even bigsis’s dorm room in South Quad was awe inspiring to me. I really do think that it was during those visits that I got bit by the higher-ed bug that has kept me working in the college environment to this day.
Generally speaking, being a Michigan fan back then (in the days of the “Big Two & the Little Eight”) was pretty darned fun for 363 or 364 days of the year. The only exceptions were, once in a while, the Ohio State game and New Year’s Day (or whenever UofM played in a lesser, “fleabag” bowl game). Even then, the legendary Bob Ufer (see here & here) made being a “Meeechigan” fan entertaining, turning even the sorrowful moments sweet.
The first clip in the video embedded at the start of this post is, quite honestly, the most exciting sporting moment of which I have ever been a part. I was in the crowd at that game — UofM’s homecoming game against Indiana on 10/27/79. This was a bit of a down season for Bo, but things were starting to look up. Anthony Carter was a freshman, John Wangler was QB, and Bo was starting to appreciate the forward pass — Carter was that good.
By the end of the game, however, the faithful at Michigan Stadium were in a stunned silence. It looked like Lee Corso’s band of Hoosiers would escape with a 21-21 tie. Which, for Michigan fans, was just as bad as a loss. Just before the fateful play shown in the clip, there was a play where UofM running back Lawrence Reid “fumbled” the ball out of bounds to stop the clock, lateraling it right into Corso’s hands. Corso comically held it for half a beat & then dropped it like a hot potato & proceeded to throw a fit. That incident, the ending of the game, & Corso’s whining about it are why I still cannot take Corso seriously to this very day.
That final play — the 45 yd Wangler to Carter touchdown with no time on the clock — caused the volume in Michigan Stadium to jump as if the volume knob had been twisted from 0 to 11 in an instant. I’ve never heard a change in sound like that, before or since. Then, to hear Ufer’s call of the play & eventually to have that call combined with the video, well, that just added to the specialness of the moment in my mind’s eye.
I may not always like individual Michigan folks (players, coaches, students, alums, etc.), and the town & university can be rather pretentious & full of themselves, but the mythology of Michigan football will always be able to awaken the 10 year-old true believer in me.
-ghp
What to write
Deciding what to write can be a pain. I know I want to write. I even have lots of ideas about what to write during times of the day (and night) when I can’t write. Then, when the time & opportunity come to write, I seize up.
I want to be significant, or at the very least write stuff that’s perceived as significant. I want to be profound. I want to be entertaining. I want my blog to be visited & read. Ego & pride can be like that.
Unfortunately, I’ve also read quite a few “best practices” “how-to-build-a-ginormous-blog-readership” postings. Quite frankly, I’m not all that interested in being that disciplined.
While I’m not wanting to go and open up a vein, in terms of writing a full-disclosure, no-holds-barred blog, I do think it would be inadvisable, if not impossible, for me to try and wring my personality completely out of what I write & post, just so I can hit an arbitrary “marketing” target.
In some ways, the recent blog-pruning that I did wasn’t the best thing for me to do. I deleted a whole bunch of posts, which, while needing to be done, has resulted in my becoming a little too circumspect when I go to write new posts. I’m starting to run everything I write through a filter of “Gee… will I just be deleting this in a year or three? Maybe I just should cut out the middleman & not post it…” It doesn’t make that much sense, I know, but it can be how my mind works at times.
In line with that is being overly aware of who my “target audience” is/might/should be. Sometimes I think I should take greater care in appealing to some mythical “larger” audience out there. Other times I think I should just write for myself & possibly bigsis. And then there are always the thoughts about what happens if the “wrong” folks read the “wrong” thing, and I end up getting some hassle for something that I’ve written (e.g., about church, work, etc…).
In the end, I think that I’m just going to try to (once again) stay loose enough to write what I think, and write it well. I’m not writing the “Great American Novel” here, writing some great treatise of deep theological significance, or even writing something that has humor and/or redeeming value. I’m just writing my thoughts, and hopefully doing so in a well-crafted & cogent manner.
If I’m doing this just to be “liked” and/or “popular”, then maybe I should stop. It’s not worth it, because it’s not all that likely to yield such a result. If I’m doing it to be informative, at least in a “newsy” way, then I should probably stop as well. I’ve got a much better chance at being informative in a “this is what my take on this is” type of way. I’m neither a newsmaker, nor a newsbreaker. I do, however, have opinions (snarky and serious) about news that others make & break.
I don’t want to be a stereotypical “navel-gazing” blogger, but I’ve got to stop worrying so much about it. Such worry has no point. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? Everyone stops reading? I would hope that my ego wouldn’t be that fragile.
-ghp
The devil’s basic doctrine
For some reason, I’m still receiving Christian News. I expected to receive it in the weeks leading up to the convention, but I figured that it would stop showing up shortly thereafter. I subscribed to CN for several years, but grew weary of it.
Theologically speaking, it’s quite good; however, it is a bit repetitive, sort of like a blunt force assault. Rev. Otten knows a few notes, and while many are quite good, he just plays them over and over and over and over and over. And when some of those notes are more political & less theological… well, it makes sifting through the wheat & chaff even more laborious a task.
Anyhoo, I’m still getting CN, and in the most recent (Oct 01, 2007) issue there was a book review that was really quite good. In particular, at least for the purposes of this posting, the review of Rev. Siegbert Becker’s Revelation — The Distant Triumph Song yielded this nugget:
“The basic doctrine of the devil is salvation by works.”
That quote just jumped out at me & made me think. And after thinking on it for a bit, I realized just how accurate it is.
Satan is far too wily & crafty to lead folks astray by boldface lies & statements that are clearly in opposition to Scriptural Truth. No, he is far more effective when he just twists the truth ever so slightly. By doing so in a way that appeals to our sinful, fallen intellect, he can lead us away from God’s Truth. Even as we might think that we are following that truth, we are instead following the idol of our own thinking & making.
We want nothing more than to think we can fulfill the Law. Man has always wanted to be complicit in his own salvation. Sin has corrupted us such that we would, however subtly, reject that which God has freely given us as the only source of salvation — Jesus on the cross.
This is why Martin Luther was correct in identifying Justification as the doctrine on which the Church stands or falls. If Justification by faith alone is not true, then the devi’s basic doctrine is correct and all is lost.
Thanks be to God that such is not the case!
-ghp
A new look
It seems that bigsis didn’t like the more austere look that I’ve had, theme-wise, for the past week or so.
Of course, you know, that means that I had to make a change (love ya, bigsis! ;^) ).
I think that I’ve got something that looks pretty cool, and is reasonably functional to boot. I particularly like the “featured article/posting” function, along with the general look-&-feel design work that the theme author put into it.
Theme design is something that is a bit of a bugaboo for me, as I know what I want on a certain level, and I know when I don’t have it, but I’m nowhere near patient enough to design the silly stuff myself. That’s generally why I get some wanderlust every so often & feel compelled to move the virtual furniture around a bit.
And each time I hope/think that I’ve finally gotten it “right”…
Hopefully, this time I have! ;^)
-ghp
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