Giving Thanks for Basketball

This Thanksgiving along with family, friends, and health, I am giving thanks for basketball. Thanks to Sterling High School, Illinois State University, UW-Stevens Point, the first women’s pro league WBL, International Basketball Association FIBA , and all the other high school, colleges, international clubs and federations that granted women permission to play basketball. Because it wasn’t so long along that girls were confined to the sideline.

Sterling Daily Gazette 1977

I am thankful for Jim McKinzie, the first man convinced I had the right to play. He taught me how to dribble and shoot before a time when dads and daughters playing ball together was apropos. In 1977, he coached my younger classmates and sister, Karen, to Illinois’ First Girls State Championship as co-coach of the Sterling Golden Girls. That first tournament was played at my alma mater Illinois State University where I earned the first college basketball scholarship, playing for the woman who first proved that a women’s heart wouldn’t explode by running fullcourt. God bless Coach Jill Hutchinson. And Shirley Egner, once a rival of mine graduating from UW-LaCrosse, making her mark as DIII national championship coach, who thirty years later shaped my daughter as an athlete at University Wisconsin Stevens Point.

Coach Hutchinson, Coach Egner & Nat

I’ve never been back for an ISU alumni game nor experienced the thrill of playing at my college alma mater in the Redbird Area in front of 10,000 fans. I’ve never even had the honor of racing down that polished wooden floor on my own highschool gym. In my day when girls were finally granted permission to play, we were relegated to the junior high gym.

I spent the first decade of childhood fighting to get on the court, the second decade playing the game, the third coaching competitively abroad, the fourth writing about the sport and the fifth feeling grateful that one day forty some years ago, somebody under my roof in my community, at my college, in my country gave me – a girl - a chance to play a man’s game. To gain that opportunity at that time was a battle; many people fought it every step of our way.

This Thanksgiving weekend, Sterling High School celebrates its first alumni basketball game. I wish I could be there, not to hit jumpers - my playing days ended long ago - but to give thanks. Over a century ago, James Naismith invented the game to bring people together and sent it traveling round the world with the missionaries he trained. I did my own small bit coaching internationally uniting high school players from all four corners of the globe. From starting the first girl’s basketball camp in Sauk Valley to initiating the first alumni game at the International School of Geneva, my life has been about taking the opportunity people gave me and passing it on, so that nobody grew up feeling second best.

This T-Day, no one thinks twice about girls getting sweaty, knocking down treys and going coast to coast. Nowadays, women would never consider blessing the gift of the game along with the bird. Equal opportunity in sport and education is a given. But today at my table, I’m taking time to thank the people who paved the way. Hallelujah, the chance to play ball is a birthright. Even for the female gender. Amen.

Beaujolais Nouveau - Wine, Music and Fireworks

According to my Frenchman, Beaujolais (BOE zioh lay) Nouveau is not a wine, it is an event. Any wine connaisseur will agree that when it comes to wine, older is better than new. The process used to harvest the Gamay grape, involving an expeditious harvest, a rapid fermentation, and a speedy bottling, may be likened to the « fast food »of French viticulture.

Beaujolais Nouveau, a young wine, only six weeks old, should be drunk before May unless it has been exceptional year like the harvest of 2000.

Beaujolais’ marketing success, is in part due to the government stipulation that the first bottle be uncorked on the 3rd Thurs of November. The race to be the first to serve the new wine begins as millions of cases are delivered to final destination by every means available, motorcycle, balloon, truck, helicopter, jet, elephant, runners and even rickshaws. The Japanese, traditionally not big wine drinkers, love this light, nectar. Beaujolais Nouvea is sold in 110 different countries with Japan being the biggest consumers, followed by the USA and Germany.

Wine shop downtown Beaune

Four thousand grape growers cultivate the region of Beaujolais, which is 34 miles long and about 8 miles wide, just outside of Lyon, France’s 3rd largest city. These are the only vineyards, other than the champagne region in central France, where it is in mandatory to harvest the grapes by hand. Sixty-five million bottles, half of the regions total annual production making up one third of the regions entire crop will be sold as Beaujolais Nouveau.

Throughout the world, traditions have developed to celebrate the release of the Beaujolais. The biggest is a three-day party called Sarmentelles, which takes place in Beaujeu, the capital of the Beaujolais region. The festival is named after the French word sarments, which are the cuttings from the canes of grapevine that are burned in town on the eve of the unveiling. Lyon hosts a Beaujolympiades with two days of wine, music and fireworks. Across France, local shops and grocery stores offer a sample sip in shot glasses. Even in the Windy City, chic restaurants celebrate the wine’s arrival in places such as the Chicago Sky Lounge, Bistro Zinc, and Bistro 110.

This light bodied, fruity wine appeals to many Americans’ palates. Since it arrives a week before Thanksgiving, expats abroad often serve it with holiday meal, but not in my house. My husband, appalled that the sacred turkey be accompanied by lackluster wine that is more about marketing than quality, insists on serving the T-bird with only the finest aged Bordeaux.

French law adds to the hype by mandating not one drop may be poured until a minute after midnight am on Nov. 18th. Banners in shops, restaurants, and pubs proclaim, “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!” (New Beaujolais has arrived)

Every November 18th, though my husband is not a Beaujolais Nouveau fan, we uncork a bottle to commemorate a momentous occasion in our family. Twenty years ago, we announced to the world, “le petit Nicolas est arrive!” So I raise my glass to our son, “Happy birthday, Nic, santé!”

Downsizing Hurts the Heart

When I look out in our carport I am still shocked...."Honey, who shrunk the car!" Our new vehicle looks a fourth of the size of our old van, as if somebody waved a magic wand and turned it into a shiny compact model. Now my ride is so sporty and spotless, I am afraid to even turning the key in the ignition.

As empty nesters in a first painful step toward downsizing, we bid a fond farewell the 7-seater packed with memories of mountain drives, trips across France and basketball tournaments throughout Switzerland. But better to shrink the car than the house.

Even though in the absence of children, our home, small by American standards is too big. Our four floors, stacked like building blocks, house only two inhabitants, yet every closet is crammed and every shelf overflowing. I need the space to store all the memories.

My house begs for a major make over, a purge, a clean sweep, but I remain immobilized, as if parting with anything is like pitching a priceless heirloom. Shelves overflow with books marking each stage of childhood from Goodnight Moon to Bernstein Bears to Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings. I find it no easier to toss old board games like Candy Land to Life to Scrabble. Old sweatshirts and t-shirts representing every team my son and daughter ever played for - or even supported - line closets. Random basketballs, footballs, and soccer balls still bounce off shelves.

And the toys! How can I part with Nic’s pirate ship and electric train set or Nathalie’s Little Ponies and Beanies Babies, all 300, that she once so lovingly recorded by name and birth date, replacing the pets we never owned.

Alas even harder to part with are the papers, like my own Taj Mahal of colored binders filled with decades of anecdotes, stories and journals capturing first smiles to first spills from first races to braces, first cars to colleges, stacked from the floor to the ceiling recounting each age, every stage of our lives.

Even though I understand intellectually that my daughter, soon a medial resident, anywhere USA and my son, filled with American college coursework and commitments, have embarked on their own career paths thousands miles away. In my mind, I know they return home as temporary guests before embarking on their next adventure, yet in my heart, I am unable to part with the past.

In every room of the house fleeting reminders of ball games, art projects, research papers, road trips, and special occasions bombard me. As if by discarding anything, I would shatter that perfect illusion in the collective kaleidoscope of memorabilia that made our family unique and beautiful.

Solidarity with a Smile for the Computer Illiterate

I am an electronically handicapped loser with a capital L. Seriously, I would flunk out of Plug-It-In 101. Just looking at computers makes me break into a sweat. My mind is like that little icon going in circles when the network is lost. Yup, completement plantee, that is my brain. I feel so overwhelmed, ideas start spinning. I can never keep up.

First of all, I never follow directions and secondly, I never read to the end of messages.I never learned computerspeak or if I did it is a mishmash of franglais. (French/English) As soon as a warning pops up on the screen, « Time machine could not back up files, » I panic and run for cover. When messages like this flash across the screen, it makes me feel as if I have been thrown into another dimension.

I blame my incompetence on my French husband. Gerald is a tech whiz. He thinks in gigabytes. If he can’t figure out the problem, he has I.T. gurus in his company to help. Me, I have only one recourse, « GGGGGGeeeerrrrrrrraallllldddd ! Hheellpp ! The computer ate my paper. Again !»

The techno-speak terminology baffles me. Maybe if they called the toolbox, the gym bag, I would understand better. Tool bars, navigation panels, HTLM, hyperlink, book mark…how can you have a book mark without a book? Even those little pictures confuse me : guitar, camera, time machine, Adobe reader, toaster (toast Titanium) for Gods sake. I cannot visualize any of them. Where are the photographs, musical notes, movies? And where is the blinking mailbox I know they are out there somewhere, just invisible. I can’t get my head around it.

Organization? Forget it. Documents, files, sub files - I can’t see any of them. Out of sight out of mind. The only thing I can find on a regular basis is the blank document. Then as soon as I fill up the page it disappears in cyberspace, but I know I saved it somewhere !

Gerald makes me jump, shouting over my shoulder, « Pot, it ees seemple logic. »

LO-GIC. L-O-G-I-C. Find a system. Label, categorize, file. Must be rigorous. Must have a logical way of thinking. I don’t have one iota of either.

« First tip of advice, » Gerald insists, « Keep your desk top clear ! »

In our house, we have five wooden and four electronic desks, but no desktops, at least none that I can see. I no sooner clean off one, than another one piles up. I hear Gerald’s voice and I cringe, « It is unsupportable, your maniere of disorder. »

I blame it on an ADHD body and a creative mind. My limbs cannot stay still and my brain never remains idle.

If anyone is aware of a self help group for the technologically impaired, let me know. I would be the first to sign up. « Hello, iPat and i need an upgrade. »