Passion is alive and well in Seattle

Amber, is now a good time, since Greenleaf, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year is over, and before tax time, unless of course, you are busy on executive end of year reports of some executive kind, to ask about the Twenty-Fifth anniversary t-shirt I wanted? Just wondering. I can wait until you aren't busy, silly me! I think I mentioned my original has turned into an indecent rag. Love you to Skittles and back.

And Roger, is now a good time to ask when your tax shop will be open for business? I have my w2. Love you to Skittles and back.

Movie: Instructions Not Included, Mexican, colorful, sweet, silly, shamelessly sentimental. Viewers liked it, critics did not, it's 56/93 on RottenTomates. A drama/comedy, it isn't a great movie but it gets a big fat honorable mention from me. I was moved.

Entertaining address: Rices Texas Hill Road in Oregon House, California. Great huh?

Quote o'the day: You have to live the life that there is to be lived."


Now on to football: How wide spread is football? Is it a disease, pastime, entertainment, sport?

I was with Janice and Art once as we walked around Seattle, yes that was back when Janice and I walked around, anyway, they were wearing Angel's jackets and everywhere we went people talked baseball to them. I remember being amazed at the variety and number of fans of the sport. It wasn't amazing to Janice and Art.

And now I am in the midst of football talk. Some kind of football heaven or hysteria? Man does Seattle have a lot to say; teenagers at Target, little old ladies in the smoking area, colleagues to numerous to count. One of my friends at that game was sitting next to a man who had a heart attack.

I had no idea how serious this obsession was even after watching Mom and family all these years, even knowing Mark Harris, even seeing Jennifer Taylor break a toy at reunion one year over a call. A bad or good call I can't remember, but it affected her deeply, deeply. I guess it was a bad call; good calls make you throw your hands in the air in exultation, bad calls make you slam your fists down in frustration. Where have I been all these years?

I had no idea Christian knew so much detail about football. I had no idea Christian couldn't sit down during a crucial game. Even though I had watched Mike Noland pace through some Rangers game at Greenleaf one year, I had no idea crucial games existed at this level until I watched my son's, and the girls, watch that championship game. Watching Christian absorb and translate and appreciate the technical strategies of the game amazed me.

People feel these events intimately, deeply, passionately.

Somehow this was a life lesson for me. A revelation of passion I swear I wasn't aware of before. Now I understand murder and religious ecstasy better.

How have I missed this all these years? Bach, ballet, horseshoes, poker, father's yelling at their kids on the playing field, al Qaeda, world soccer cup riots, Dr Salk, Dr Livingston, Byrd, Amundsen, need I go on.

Passion is a funny old horse, deeply engaging, fierce, devoted, personal. It only took the micro exposure of my family and several million fans in Washington to educate me. I have a firm grasp on life and death, on love and hate, on fear and peace, but this folks came as a surprise.

WOW! Where does it come from? Where is the seed from which it blooms? I'm lively, creative, lived a long time, so I don't know what surprises me more; the passion out there or my lack of awareness. It seems as though passion involves life, limb, mind, body, risk, reward. A human weakness or a human gift? Vicariously or not passion exists. Animal battles over water, food, land, over the field of action what ever it may be. I even understand my friend Lynn better also.

Passion drives: As Jeff once said, if it had been up to him there would be one giant city in the middle of the African Savannah. He would never have crossed the ice bridge.

God I love humans! And life. I have come close to passion with infants and vistas, everything else was something else.

And that brings us to the final conundrum;
My passion is okay -- yours isn't.
How human can we get?
Humans are weighed down by weighty matters.

There is a big football game coming up and I can tell you Seattle will be watching -- with passion.