Never Again

What'd you do Wednesday night?

I spent two hours in Hell, or as it's known in Fort Smith "The Growing Kids Consignment Sale."

Angie said we just had to attend. There were bargains galore. Strollers that go for $300 new sell for $50. Kids' furniture, clothes, diaper bags, you name it they've got it.

On the plus side, the people running this thing are sticklers about what they accept for the sale. Teeny little stain? Nope, won't accept it. Missing a button? Sorry, no thanks. And, thanks to Angie putting Jen's name on some of her own kids' clothes, we got to go on Wednesday night before it was open to the general public.

On the minus side, it was overwhelming. Here's a photo of the setup from the sale's Web site (yes, it has a Web site) ...




(Click on the photo and you can get a bigger look at it.)

Now if Wednesday was like that photo, I'd have been fine. But imagine a few hundred women, dozens of kids running loose and a sprinkling of men carrying the piles of clothes being bought. And I do mean piles. People were using 50-gallon trash cans as shopping carts and were filling them up.

Naturally, these women were ruthless too. They'd nudge you with the strollers they were buying to get you to move when they wanted to look at something. I had one woman ask me if I was going to buy a diaper bag ... that I was holding in my hands! (We did buy it. Laura Ashley, $10 and in perfect condition.)

Luckily, the next time there's one of these sales I won't be attending. I'll pull a Jason and say "Sorry, but somebody has to stay home with the baby."

Age-induced fear

We started softball season this week, and I had a moment where I thought "Damn, is this what it means to get old?"

It wasn't that I was sore the next day or that I couldn't do what I was able to do last year. It fact, it wasn't anything physical at all. Instead, it was all mental.

You see, playing coed softball you get these guys trying to recapture their glory days of high school baseball. They step to the plate and crush the ball. And, occasionally, they'll crush it right back at the pitcher aka me.

I've had close calls before. Jen was there for several of them. Line drives right at my head. Ones that I was just able to get a glove on before being decapitated. I've had guys intentionally try to hit back up the middle when their team was losing. I've taken linedrives off my thigh, whiz between my legs and knock my cap off.

This year, however, it felt different.

Going into the first game of the year, I was worried about getting injured. Hell, I was scared. That was new. That was unexpected.

At first, I thought turning 40 triggered some new "Be careful" mode. Then, I wondered if I wasn't subliminally worried about getting hurt while Jen was pregnant. I couldn't figure it out. So I did what every guy does in that situation, I told myself to quit being a baby and go for it. I can protect myself if another rocket comes at me.

Through three games over two nights, no line drives yet. Only two more months to go.

Death of a racehorse

I love horse racing. The call to post (that trumpet fanfare before each race) is one of my favorite songs. I get goose bumps when 100,000 people sing "My Old Kentucky Home."

But each time a big race rolls around, I hold my breath. Not because I'm worried about hitting my trifecta bet, but because I'm worried a horse is going to die. As am I sure y'all know, one did Saturday at the Kentucky Derby.

I've been at Oaklawn when a horse broke down. The place fell silent and you could hear the whinning as it tried to get up. Luckily, the jockey and an outrider were there to keep it from trying to stand on a broken leg. The neighing kept up for a couple of minutes ... until the vet arrived. Then it got really, really quiet.

I hate that horses die at the track. It tears me up inside. I still haven't watched a replay nor seen a photo of Eight Belles' collapse. I hope I'll never accidentally see either.

That said, PETA can go straight to Hell for trying to blame the jockey for the horse's injury. I have seen photos of the jockey immediately following the race. Tears were streaming down his face, and not because he didn't win the Kentucky Derby. (Side: If I unleashed 10 NYC sewer rats in PETA's corporate HQ, what would they do? Try to feed them and take of them, or kill them?)

Anyway, if you've not read it. W.C. Heinz, one of America's greatest sports writers, wrote about a horse breaking down back in 1949. This was written on deadline, but it's still the best bit of writing I've ever seen about horse racing's tragic side (and, honestly, it might be the most perfect newspaper story ever written) ...

Death of a Racehorse

by

W.C. Heinz


They were going to the post for the sixth race at Jamaica, two year olds, some making their first starts, to go five and a half furlongs for a purse of four thousand dollars. They were moving slowly down the backstretch toward the gate, some of them cantering, others walking, and in the press box they had stopped their working or their kidding to watch, most of them interested in one horse.

"Air Lift," Jim Roach said. "Full brother of Assault."

Assault, who won the triple crown ... making this one too, by Bold Venture, himself a Derby winner, out of Igual, herself by the great Equipoise ... Great names in the breeding line ... and now the little guy making his first start, perhaps the start of another great career.

They were off well, although Air Lift was fifth. They were moving toward the first turn, and now Air Lift was fourth. They were going into the turn, and now Air Lift was starting to go, third perhaps, when suddenly he slowed, a horse stopping, and below in the stands you could hear a sudden cry, as the rest left him, still trying to run but limping, his jockey -- Dave Gorman -- half falling, half sliding off.

"He broke a leg!" somebody, holding binoculars to his eyes, shouted in the press box. "He broke a leg!"

Down below they were roaring for the rest, coming down the stretch now, but in the infield men were running toward the turn, running toward the colt and the boy standing beside him, alone. There was a station wagon moving around the track toward them, and then, in a moment, the big green van that they call the horse ambulance.

"Gorman was crying like a baby," one of them, coming out of the jockey room, said. "He said he must have stepped in a hole, but you should have seen him crying."

"It's his left front ankle," Dr. J.G. Catlett, the veterinarian, was saying. "It's a compound fracture; and I'm waiting for confirmation from Mr. Hirsch to destroy him."

He was standing outside one of the stables beyond the backstretch, and he had just put in a call to Kentucky where Max Hirsch, the trainer, and Robert Kleber, the owner, are attending the yearling sales.

"When will you do it?" one of them said.

"Right as soon as I can," the doctor said. "As soon as I get confirmation. If it was an ordinary horse I'd done it right there."

He walked across the road and around another barn to where they had the horse. The horse was still in the van, about twenty stable hands in dungarees and sweat-stained shirts, bare-headed or wearing old caps, standing around quietly and watching with Dr. M.A. Gilman, the assistant veterinarian.

"We might as well get him out of the van," Catlett said, "before we give him the novocaine. It'll be a little better out in the air."

The boy in the van with the colt led him out then, the colt limping, tossing his head a little, the blood running down and covering his left foreleg. When they saw him, standing there outside the van now, the boy holding him, they started talking softly.

"Full brother of Assault." ... "It don't make no difference now. He's done." ... "But damn, what a grand little horse." ... "Aint he a horse?"

"It's a funny thing," Catlett said. "All the cripples that go out, they never break a leg. It always happens to a good-legged horse."

A man, gray-haired and rather stout, wearing brown slacks and a blue shirt, walked up.

"Then I better not send for the wagon yet?" the man said.

"No," Catlett said. "Of course, you might just as well. Max Hirsch may say no, but I doubt it."

"I don't know," the man said.

"There'd be time in the morning," Catlett said.

"But in this hot weather--" the man said.

They had sponged off the colt, after they had given him the shot to deaden the pain, and now he stood, feeding quietly from some hay they had placed at his feet. In the distance you could hear the roar of the crowd in the grandstand, but beyond it and above it you could hear thunder and see the occasional flash of lightning.

When Catlett came back the next time he was hurrying, nodding his head and waving his hands. Now the thunder was louder, the flashes of lightning brighter, and now rain was starting to fall.

"All right," he said, shouting to Gilman. "Max Hirsch talked to Mr. Kleberg. We've got the confirmation."

They moved the curious back, the rain falling faster now, and they moved the colt over close to a pile of loose bricks. Gilman had the halter and Catlett had the gun, shaped like a bell with the handle at the top. This bell he placed, the crowd silent, on the colt's forehead, just between the eyes. The colt stood still and then Catlett, with the hammer in his other hand, struck the handle of the bell. There was a short, sharp sound and the colt toppled onto his left side, his eyes staring, his legs straight out, the free legs quivering.

"Aw ----" someone said.

That was all they said. They worked quickly, the two vets removing the broken bones as evidence for the insurance company, the crowd silently watching. Then the heavens opened, the rain pouring down, the lightning flashing, and they rushed for the cover of the stables, leaving alone on his side near the pile of bricks, the rain running off his hide, dead an hour and a quarter after his first start, Air Lift, son of Bold Venture, full brother of Assault.


-30-

R.I.P. Rib Room

That's right, it's gone. Until at least 2009.

Depending on what version of the story you hear, either Neumeier got into a dispute with the guy who owns the land the Beer Garden is on or the architects who designed the second story addition to the Beer Garden screwed up the price. (You can see the design for it here ... www.ribroom.com) Either way, Bill announced it's not opening this summer.

I'm not sure if that means the Rib Room restaurant itself won't be open. I sure hope it is. I can't go a full year without some of that smoked chicken. And I'm almost out of dry rub!

This is the worst thing to happen to downtown Fort Smith since the 1996 tornado.

First the Stardust, now the Rib Room. If Papa's closes, I might curl up into the fetal position and die.

Geez, my PS3 crashed! (Best Buy sucks)

Middle of a game tonight, my PS3 crashed. It wouldn't restart. It wouldn't eject the disc.

Call Best Buy. "Umm, you just need to bring it in and let The Geek Squad look at it."

Take it in. "Yeah, it's broken. Take it to Customer Service, they'll give you a replacement."

One problem, it's a 60g that's backwards compatible with the PS2 games. Sony doesn't make that model any longer.

The 80g is backward compatible, the 40g isn't. Naturally, Best Buy is out of 80g machines. But they've got about 50 of the 40g units stacked 6-feet high.

I ask the high school chick manning the Customer Service desk when some more 80s will arrive. "We aren't going to get any more. But you can order one through BestBuy.com."

Can you order it, have it shipped here to the store and save me shipping and handling charges? "No, because what you order from BestBuy.com comes from a different warehouse than what comes to our store."

That really didn't answer my question. Let me talk to your supervisor. Get the same explanation.

I tell them how I can go to Lowes.com, order an entire freaking garage and have it shipped to the local Lowe's for free. You see, Lowe's understands that if you make a customer happy he's more likely to return. They both seem perplexed by this idea of "making the customer happy."

So once I get my new 80g via BestBuy.com, I'm done with that freakin' store. I'll buy electronics from Wal-Mart before I head back there.