A Grip on Sports: This is a day that is all about memories and legacies and sacrifice and those who gave everything for us
A GRIP ON SPORTS • We have plans for today. Simple ones, really. Part of the simplicity is built on the nature of today’s holiday. Memorial Day should be a quiet time, based on reflection. The other part? Summer seemed to arrive in these parts yesterday.
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• At about 11 a.m. yesterday Donut, Kim and I were atop a hill – a bump, really, in the local landscape, yet still higher than the highest point in 16 states – just east of our home, looking west toward Spokane’s tree-covered South Hill.
It is a view I’ve never tired of, despite the quick, steep climb it takes to get there. And a view that reminds us every time of how lucky we are to live where we live.
In the course of our slow, meandering hike in the Glenrose section of the Dishman Hills Conservancy, we were able to vista not only the tree canopy of the eastern South Hill but also, in different spots, the airport’s control tower, the industrial area north of Sprague, the Spokane Valley and the hills that ring it. It’s a hike we’ve taken quite often in the past almost 40 years, even before it was part of the Conservancy.
To be honest, when we were younger (and our dogs were larger), we got lost a few times in the underbrush that lies in the low spots between Glenrose and Ponderosa. Had to follow our noses, and the dogs’ hindquarters, to find the then-unmaintained trails.
The goal remains the same, however. To walk into quiet spots that allow us to disappear from the hubbub. To turn off our phones, turn off our anxieties and turn on our feet. To wander. To listen. To share our gratitude of the life we built together.
Of course, on a weekend built around memories of those who gave themselves, every bit of themselves, to our futures, we chatted about the sacrifices our parents and their generation made.
Neither of our fathers made the ultimate one, though my dad spent years in the South Pacific in World War II and Kim’s dad was a Marine during Korea. They, however, knew many who died in service to the nation.
My dad lost friends from his youth. He lost more than a few people he served with. He lost, grotesquely, his most-admired commanding officer. And, thanks to his desire to share his memories as he reached into his 80s, I know how much each loss meant to him.
They left something behind. Guilt in one case. Loss in others. Memories in all. A lifetime of occasionally just stopping and thinking about them.
For my father, Memorial Day could be any day. Anytime. Anywhere. He could be driving his early-‘60s Scout car filled with newspapers down a Hastings Ranch road at 4:12 on a Sunday morning and be hit with a thought about that kid he used to play baseball with when he was 10. He would then share that memory with his only son, a 10-year-old sitting on the pile of papers in the back.
And smile at some happy recollection.
Why? I found out years later. At the time the Vietnam War was blazing. Young men were coming back to the states in body bags. Thousands of them, sacrificing what Abraham Lincoln so eloquently called “the last full measure of devotion” is a rice paddy or on a numbered hill.
There was no end in sight. My dad worried his 10-year-old son might end up carrying a rifle in a jungle somewhere. And come home with the same baggage he did. He wanted me to remember the friends I had at that time in my young life. To build a reservoir of memories I could tap if they went to war and never returned.
And, hopefully, to fill up their memory well of me too if the worst were to happen.
Such memories helped him as he grew older. Did I hear stories about the kid with the Coke-bottle glasses or the one with the cardboard in his baseball glove and all the others way too often? Sure. Did I tune out? Yes. It’s a mistake I’ve dwelled on often over the years.
It took me decades to realize that was how my dad, probably everyone’s dad and mom who served, kept their fallen friends alive.
They may not have come home from the Philippines or Guam or wherever, but they also never left Sierra Madre either. Not as long as people who knew them talked about them and their lives.
I was too young to go to Vietnam. It haunted me for a while. I wanted to measure up. My older sister’s friends, people who I met, went. And most came back different. If they came back.
I always wondered how I would have dealt with the experience of war. And I shared that question with dad late in his life.
He looked at me as he always did, as if he didn’t understand me one bit. But he answered me. In his own way.
He told me I should thank God every day I didn’t have to find out. And asked if we could stop at In-N-Out for lunch.
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WSU: Around the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, it’s a light day in the way of stories to share. John Canzano posted a column yesterday, detailing his recent conversation with Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens. … Mullen’s baseball team, as well as Oregon State’s, will host a regional this weekend. So will eight SEC schools, three ACC, another Big Ten (UCLA) and two Sun Belt schools. No Big 12 school will host. The 64-team field will be announced this morning. … Arizona thought it had a good chance. … In football, Utah is counting on former Washington State running back Wayshawn Parker to have a key role. … How far is Utah State from competing with the top Group of Five schools? … There are two Pac-12 legacy schools in the NCAA women’s softball final eight. Oregon punched their ticket to OKC on Saturday. The UCLA women routed host South Carolina and will be playing in their record 33rd championship series.
Gonzaga: Will the Thunder, and Chet Holmgren, play with more urgency in their game today in Minnesota? … In Sunday’s other NBA semifinal, Indiana and Andrew Nembhard broke out to a 20-point lead at home vs. the Knicks. And lost. Still no wins for the home team in the Eastern Conference finals. … Elsewhere in the WCC, Saint Mary’s won’t host, but the Gaels will be in the NCAA baseball tournament after holding off USD 9-8 late Saturday night to win the conference’s berth.
Indians: Dave Nichols spent his warm and sunny Sunday in the Avista Stadium press box – an old college friend spent it in the stands with his grandson – and shared his thoughts on the Indians’ 2-1 win over Tri-City. The game took 2 hours and 19 minutes.
Mariners: Dan Wilson got tossed. Why? Trying to keep Randy Arozarena in what was then a tie game in the ninth. Seven pitches later, it was over, as Houston won 5-3 on Christian Walker’s two-run home run. Seattle finished its road trip 6-4. … Logan Gilbert made the Houston fans angry.
Kraken: Buffalo Sabres’ star Tage Thompson scored in overtime to lift the U.S. to a 1-0 win over Switzerland in the World Championships’ final. The title is the United States’ first in the event since 1933.
Seahawks: Those who have played flag football a long time would like to be in the Olympics. But the NFL players may push them out.
Indianapolis 500: We said yesterday Alex Palou probably should have won the race already but hadn’t. Now he has. And is the first driver from Spain to win the event. … Our pick, four-time winner Helio Castroneves, finished 14th. The favorite, Pato O’Ward, ran fourth. And back-to-back defending champion Josef Newgarden, who started in the back row, ended up 25th. … Kyle Larson did not have a good day trying for a Indy/NASCAR double.
Storm: Jewell Loyd returned to Seattle as a member of the always successful Las Vegas Aces. And experienced a blowout loss. Seattle dominated, winning 102-82. … The win illustrated much about Seattle’s past, present and future.
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• Our other plans for today? Kim and I watched all the Mission Impossible movies this week. Finished up “Dead Reckoning Part One” last night. Now we are headed downtown today to watch the final chapter. Watching so many movies with the same basic plot in such a short time allowed my mind to wander. And it wandered here: Do you think Tom Cruise had that Steve McQueen poster, the one from “The Great Escape” with McQueen on the stolen motorcycle, on his wall growing up? There has been a motorcycle chase in every MI movie. That can’t be a coincidence, can it? Until later …