​Two weeks ago there was a pop fly to our leftfielder in the 62+ (years old) baseball league I play in. We’re all creaky, a bit slow, don’t get a jump on things. He didn’t see the ball clearly as I watched. A disaster ensued.
 
When a routine fly ball to the outfield is hit in baseball, the player gets to the spot to catch, waits, looks up, gets their glove ready and captures the dropping sphere. That didn’t happen.
 
Baseball at the 62+ level is an adventure. This play proved it.
 
Rather than pounding his glove with an, “I GOT IT,” our leftfielder decided to do an imitation of riding a merry-go-round. AW OH! “This isn’t going to turn out well,” I thought.
 
First, you must understand this guy. He’s a bit slow to begin with, kind of “out there” when you have a conversation with him, wondering if he’s really all there. So, you get the sense he’s easily distracted.

That wasn’t the case on this play. He couldn’t get a bead on the ball. So he circled. And circled. It looked like a skit from “The Three Stooges,” with Curly “whoob whoobing” away trying to make things funny, when you realized this was serious and our leftfielder was lost.
 
He finally stabilized. Got his glove up at the last minute. And wham, lo and behold, it landed in his mitt. He caught it.

But the momentum of the fly also caught him. He stumbled to the side, collapsed and didn’t get up. At our age, you think, “heart attack.” It has happened. In our league, players have passed away in the dugout, probably from too much excitement.
 
He moved though, so we knew he was alive. Whew. But he couldn’t get up. Bad. We all ran out to tend to him.
 
He rolled on the turf, trying to stabilize his body to rise. Finally, he did so, limping titanically in pain as he trudged to the dugout. We put in a sub.
 
In the dugout, I asked what happened. “I have diabetes,” he replied, “and don’t see very well.”
 
That probably summarizes the old-time baseball profile: We all have maladies. Something has gone wrong in all our bodies, but we still play.
 
In his case, his vision was hazy. That sounds scary to me, because I still see well. Not being able to track the baseball with your eyes puts you in a fundamentally dangerous situation and I’m not so sure I’d keep playing if I were in his shoes. Regardless.
 
The sound of Theraguns hum in our dugout. Hamstrings, calf muscles, rotator cuffs, biceps are all getting a pounding from the massage ball between innings.
 
Routine popups go for hits because no one can move fast enough to get under the ball. No one can hit a home run over the fence because none of the pitchers throw hard enough to generate power when make contact with your bat. Guys steal bases and slide, and you wince in pain just watching them taking a big chance with multiple parts of their body by putting it in unusual, comprising and non-flexible positions. It hurts just to watch them. But, still, they do it. Over and over.
 
When I was little, I remember going to old-timer games at Yankee Stadium. Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra would get out there for an inning or two and toss the ball around and take a few cuts to make the fans happy. They seemed old and slow.

That’s us. We are old and slow. But still in the ballgame. Probably doing silly things we shouldn’t be doing anymore, yet still wanting to show a certain mastery in the world. Demonstrate we’ve got it.
 
Last week there was a hit to the outfield and the ball was relayed to our second baseman. He had the chance to easily throw out the runner at home. Several of us yelled loudly, “HOME,” so he would launch the ball to the plate. Instead, he held onto it, and goes, “No one said anything.”

Oh well, sometimes you can’t hear either. That’s the way the ball bounces. At least we can still swing a bat. Despite how much your back hurts the next day. Oh, and by-the-way, our leftfielder was fine. Knee was sore, but he played the next week.

​Shoveling dirt is one of the most dignified things you can do. And, fun. You tend to forget those points when you haven’t shoveled in a while.
 
Recently, we brought some baby fir trees to our slice of this earth. Getting spots ready to plant them, my wife and I pulled out the trusted shovel and gave the turf that “dig-in” move, then stood on top of the metal to give the tool further leverage to pierce deeper.

Dig, deposit. Dig, deposit. Repeat.
 
You start sweating quickly. Your heartrate goes up. You breathe deeply. Nature smells of grass, pine, early spring flowers flow through your nose. You achieve a rhythm.
 
On big reason I love shoveling is the work involved. You accomplish something. There is a beginning (dig the hole for the plant and store the dirt to the side), middle (put the baby pine in the hole), and end (cover the base with dirt and water it). Then you get to mulch.
 
Our neighbor cut down a number of dead trees over the winter at the boundary line of our property. He ground up the stumps, leaving wood mulch. If you haven’t smelled that heavenly aroma, I charge you with finding some fresh cut mulch and breathing deeply through both nostrils. This will please you. Or make you sneeze.
 
After we planted the small firs, I dug into the much pile. Still moist, the pungent wood-smell wafted up as I tossed piles around the base of the next generation of trees to grace our property. Dig, sniff, toss. Dig, sniff, toss. Ah.
 
Last year we planted two blue spruce trees. At that time, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d wielded a shovel. It showed. I was out of breath after digging half of one of the holes. Part of that’s the aging process of the one using the shovel, but the other part is that the dignity of shoveling means you’re pushing yourself, getting your body to take on new demands. That helps you grow and develop. Grow muscles (if you keep doing it) and develop a sore back and biceps (the longer you shovel).
 
Soreness, stiffness and aching parts of your body are a natural reaction to shoveling. It’s your body’s way of telling you that you did a good thing -- you tested some boundaries, sweated, applied focus to the task at hand.
 
The shovel helps new life spring forward. The shovel allows us to insulate plants to store moisture. Digging is Zen-like as your soul gains comfort with repetition.
 
We continue to dig and plant, adding biodiversity to the land we serve. We’re contributing to a greater whole (ha, or “hole” if you’d prefer that) with the shovel by adding trees, doing our part locally to help with carbon absorption.
 
The shovel helps us grow the forest, protect its health. It’s a dignified tool. And, there is great dignity for those who master it.
 
The shovel makes the world a better place. Use it.

​It’s time. The time of year to move from Casual One to Casual Two.
 
The syndrome started with Covid. No more belts. Forget about dress clothes. Wear slippers around the house, flip flops, socks with no shoes, or just plain forget about anything on your feet and go barefoot. Who cares? No one’s looking at you. Except for those Zoom calls. Then you can do like those newscasters and just make sure you look decent from the belt up.
 
Casual One to Casual Two is the period of moving from winter sweat pants you slip on with no effort and switch out to shorts. As the temps go up, going casual gets even easier. Yank those shorts on and you’re ready to go.
 
For all the bad things about Covid, there is one good thing, and that’s the move towards casual wear. Not having to demonstrate to others how good you look that day has many benefits.

First, you don’t have to keep up with fashion of the workplace. Working from home means keeping up with the wardrobes of others no longer matters.
 
Second, because you don’t need clothes for your workplace, you save money. No more purchases. No more buying a shirt, blouse, jacket, sockets, pants, dress or shoes when an old set of any of those wear out. Instead, you can head to Goodwill or the Salvation Army and deposit your worn-out discards. The opens up your closet space, saves you money, and makes you feel good helping others.
 
Third, it takes less time (and thought) getting dressed in the morning. No planning. Just yank the clothes on. No wondering who you’re seeing today or what they’ll think of you. Think of those additional seconds of extra time adding up day after day, and by the end of the year, you’ve probably saved minutes in your life that you would use focusing on purchasing the best toilet paper on the market.
 
Fourth, hanging out casually at home lets you wear more comfortable clothes. This is probably the greatest benefit. You get dressed more quickly and are out the door with no hassles. Slip on those shorts. Yank on a t-shirt. Slide into those sandals. Out you go.
 
Seriously, there is something more relaxed about your body when you’re not constraining it with a belt, tight socks and pants that hug your legs, butt and waist. You breathe better when you wear sweats. When you move to the Casual Two time of year in shorts-wearing weather, that gets even more comfortable as your legs have the additional leeway by being freed up from constraints.
 
Casual One and Casual Two give us a little relief from the stress and worries these past two years on so many fronts. We can use that small gifts that keep us going.

​Is there an Olympic event for dogs eating their food? If there isn’t, there should be. Our two hounds would dominate.
 
We have a male (Thor) half black lab, half gene pool from parts unknown. Our other speed eater, a poor second place finisher, is Pepper (female), half Aussie Shepherd, half Catahoula.
 
I mock them each morning. “Yo, Pepper, going a little slow today?  Thor, do you need a vacuum cleaner to help wipe your bowl clean?”
 
Seriously, they don’t need any help to prepare for the Dogfood Eating Olympics. Thor is the champion. 
 
My morning routine goes like this: Prepare a quick vitamin drink for myself. Open the canned dog food and watch both canines start to salivate. I’ll look at them, lick my lips, see if they’ll imitate me. If encouraged enough, usually they do.
 
Their eyes focus on my movements. Their ears perk up when the can opens. They go into their stretching routines as the canned meat is scooped into their bowls. Finally, as the last stage of their warmup, they start beating the walls with their tails in happiness. Oh, to have that perpetual joy to slop it down.
 
Warmup finished, the bowl goes to the floor with a “clink,” and they pounce. Thor takes the early lead. Pepper licks the bits of canned beef on the side rims of the bowl, kind of like licking the frosting off a cake – eat the best part first.

This gives Thor the edge he doesn’t need. His inhalation capabilities are beyond belief. His tail hammers the cupboard.
 
By the time I’ve finished my drink and moseyed around the kitchen, I hear them propelling their metal dishes across the floor, clonking into the walls. Bam, clang, bam. Their noses drive their dishes rapidly across the floor, serving as a steering wheel to maneuver their metal receptacles with an energy you can only marvel at when you’re still pulling sleepers from your eyes and wondering what day of the week it is.
 
Thor emerges as the champion, deciding he must finish and lick the dish to a sparkle before I’ve exited the kitchen to use the facilities. I hear a final bonk against the wall, signifying he’s polished off the morning feast. Then he goes to water dish to fill his camel hump for the morning walk.
 
“Thor, you pounded it down, buddy. How did you do that? You weren’t really that hungry, were you?,” I say, emerging from the bathroom. He smiles and wags his tail.

Some days I do a fitness routine in our basement. I head downstairs, and Thor hesitates, then thunders down the steps after me. The faint clinking of Pepper’s dish continues as she pulls to the finish line a distant second place, rummaging far into the corner to pin the dish and extricate the last juicy morsels.  She’s thorough, so perhaps that is why she isn’t the champion. Style over speed.
 
Who knows what the Dogfood Eating Olympics “wiping the bowl clean” record is? All I know is that it’s damn fast. Turn around, open the refrigerator, turn on the faucet, rinse out a cup, and WHOOSH, you hear the empty metal dogfood bowl skidding across the floor as Thor dominates the field once again, that dang tail flying side to side, knowing he’s left the competition far behind.

​A meme made the rounds last week. It included multiple billionaires buying news outlets.
 
We can’t verify exactly the financial numbers in the meme of billionaires buying news outlets. We can verify though that people with exponential amounts of money now hold more sway in what the rest of us will see, read or hear in the years ahead.
 
With Elon Musk taking up the Twitter mantle, we will have another billionaire using a platform to determine how and what we view of the world. Non-journalists purchasing into news isn’t necessarily new, as publishers of newspapers, for example, have always had to run a business and survive. That means making compromises sometimes in news coverage, even though a purist reporter would like to believe otherwise.

Still, the sheer scale of the money being pumped into these enterprises, and the nature of news entities are incredibly pricey. Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post. Marc Benioff buying Time. Lauren Powell Jobs purchasing The Atlantic. There are more.
 
Here’s the scary part to me. It’s not that a successful businessperson is in charge of a large news enterprise per se. It’s the size, scope and influence that comes with the responsibility of running a HUGE information processing machine that affects hundreds of millions of people.
 
How news is researched, developed and delivered has never been a perfect process. There are time and money constraints to many stories. There are also roadblocks in terms of gaining access to sources, data, individuals. And, then, there is bias from reporters and editors. None are perfect. All have limitations. But a true journalist is tasked with digging up solid information that paints a fuller picture of an event for the reader or viewer.

Yes, that perspective is a bit old fashioned in our time-bite, Tik Tok, quick hit world today. Snippets rule.
 
I don’t think Elon Musk has any idea what he is doing messing around with Twitter. As James Corden, the late-night host said, “It must be nice to be so rich you can decide to buy hell.”
 
Wouldn’t it be better for the uber rich to purchase the Chicago Public School system and pump money into making it first-rate with all the laptops necessary, rehabbing buildings, putting world class resources at the fingertips of those kids who typically get left behind? How about if the multi-billionaires chose to set up a scholastic entity, investing in the future of our youth, putting together cutting-edge programs and staff to help us address the many problems we face today and the years ahead?
 
You can’t stop a super-rich person from doing what they want with their money. It’s what a lot of money allows you to do – buy things, take over, impose your will.
 
It’s that last piece -- “impose your will” – that’s most concerning when it comes to news and journalism. When you are able through massive financial wealth to impose your will on the flow and direction of information, you wield massive amounts of power. It must be used wisely.
 
None of us are changing this trend anytime soon. Pay attention and understand where the words and images are