Have a heart...

Happy Valentines Day!


A shout out to public school --- that wonderful experiment where the farmer’s kid and the professor’s kid and the steelworkers kid and the surgeon’s kid all attended the same school and on or around Valentines Day they, and each kid in the classroom, got a Valentine stuffed in their self-decorated brown bag from everyone of their classmates! Some kids even attached those heart-shaped, red lollipops to their Scooby-Doo Valentines. I believe they went on to hold political offices.

Remember the awkward Jr. High years and you were thankful your mother made sure you had a Valentine and even baked heart-shaped sugar cookies to help sugar-away the “I wish I had my Valentine’s brown paper bag to put over my head” twink-riddled blues of early adolescence?

Then you go through the hard, calloused, cynical years and you attend Anti-Valentine parties and play games like: “Who can name the most co-dependent love song?” The winner from my experience was Trisha Yearwood’s “How Do I Live?” Go ahead and google the lyrics….tell me if you agree…..aack!

We grow up, have experiences, find ourselves and are able to define love using more than the sentiments stamped onto those pastel candy hearts and look back and ponder.

Did you reflect on high school days and wonder about the why and the meaning (not about Algebra 1) behind the rituals of love and dating? Admittedly, not a frequent participant, can anyone explain the silver halves worn by adolescent couples? It was a half a heart, the sides jagged and sharp with, one comes to find out, a Biblical verse printed on it which was from the Book of Ruth and referenced a daughter-in-law’s love for her mother-in-law...go figure!

Why did girl’s wrap the class rings of said beaus in that colorful yarn...was it angora? I understand the reason was so the ring would fit on her finger, yet, why use that furry, bright yarn? I thought she had some special affinity for her Persian cat.

What was the point of the girls whom were dating members of the high school football team wearing their jerseys on the day of the big game? Does anyone see these rituals as some sort of ownership sticker and claim slip that girls, in need to display the “I have a boyfriend” affirmation stamp, too eagerly participated? Of course, I never did any of that….probably because I was never asked….yet…..still…...really?

The latest fad from Paris sweeping the nests of love birds, is the locks on bridges. Here is a photo I took from one of the many bridges in Pittsburgh:

The concept is couples buy a lock; may or may not write their initials or names on the lock; go to the bridge of their choosing (and there are many to pick from in Pittsburgh); confess their lasting love; lock the lock; and throw the key into the river below. What does it symbolize if one of the many over-sized carps in the rivers eat tossed key?

I don't know. I blame the French.

Happy Valentines Day! Have some chocolate……...

The Games

The poet, Langston Hughes, is often quoted, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?”

With the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia we once again marvel at a gathering of disciplined dreamers, beautiful and athletic and with a degree of commitment and achievement that leaves me gobsmacked. (I always wanted to use that word in a post)

The Olympics are one of the very best sporting events in part because of the many nations participating and the stories of the athletes in their efforts to go “faster, higher and stronger.” Here’s a fun fact, the Olympic motto --- “faster, higher, stronger” is accredited to a Dominican Priest, Henri Didon, who used the words when he addressed an opening ceremony at a school sporting event. Yowzers, that must have been some school! The only words I remember spoken before my school sporting events were, “Have fun.”

What I will most look forward to in these Games are the stories of the athletes most of whom we have never heard of, coming from small towns and villages of which we also are not familiar.

Although, I have zero clue what they look for or how they score anything in snowboarding, Sage Kostenberg claimed the first gold medal of the games for his victory in the Snowboard Slopestyle and he was a picture of hip and cool as he chewed gum on his last run sporting what looked to be khakis.

Of course, there will be the stories that break our sporting hearts -- the American athlete coming into the Opening Ceremonies on crutches after injuring her knee in a training run already has started the crack. I will look for the tales of the athletes whom have no chance of “making the podium,” yet are there to compete, to have their Olympic experience and simply to be part of the moment.

Enjoy the Games. Celebrate the stories.

There is something about the Games that lends itself to envisioning one’s own athletic glory. Tell me, you have never imagined yourself an Olympic luge contestant while sledding down the hill or, Sarah Hughes in a gold-medal skate while gliding across the local pond?

In this “the winter of our discontent,” I am imagining that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has named snow shoveling an Olympic sport. In the competition, the judges are looking for style, crisp lines and clean surfaces. I’m going for the gold! Then again, I would gladly put away my shovel for the big melt and train for the Summer Olympic sport of mowing the lawn.

sj;