In the history of TV, there have been thousands of shows that have come and gone, some memorable and others, not so much. If we were to try and narrow the thousands of quality shows down to 4, we could be here all year. There are several qualities that make a TV show great. A great cast, a great plot, great visuals and maybe above all, a great theme song. For this Mount Rushmore, we can debate the greatest comedy theme songs in the history of TV.
The Greatest American Hero – Mike Post and sung by Joey Scarbury
This show could easily have been a forgotten piece of TV history without it’s incredible theme song. The show ran for 3 years during the early 80’s and featured William Katt as a high school teacher who get a superhero suit from aliens and can’t ever figure out truly how to function in it. I know what you’re thinking, how the hell can that plot make a great comedy? Well, it didn’t last long and was largely full of scenes of the affable Katt flying around in front of green screens and usually crashing somewhere. In the meantime, the theme song sung by Joey Scarburywas a legit top 100 hit on Billboard and rose all the way to #11 in the USA in 1981. It remains a staple of the “one hit wonder” genre and while the show is gone, the song still gets you singing along to it’s catchy tune. Soak it in one more time.
2. WKRP in Cincinatti – Tom Wells/Hugh Wilson and sung by Steve Carlisle
Conversely to The Greatest American Hero, WKRP was a popular hit TV comedy throughout the 80’s with a great cast and some of the fullest scenes in the history of TV comedy. The show revolves around a Cincinnati radio station and the cast of characters from management to the on-air personalities who work there. Johnny Fever, Herb Tarlec and Les Nessman roll right off your tongue when you think of the show and if you think hard enough, you can recall the fantastic theme song that revolves around the program director making his way to his new opportunity in the ‘Natti. Enjoy!
3. Welcome Back Kotter – John Sebastien
This is the gold standard for what should happen with a them song. The show Welcome Back Kotter was a smash in the late 70’s with the launching point of John Travola and his amazing character Vinnie Barbarino. The show revolved around Mr. Kotter (Gabe Kaplan) coming to an inner city school in Brooklyn and taming a group of “Sweathogs” that resided there. The show was funny, had great characters (Horshack was the man!) and was a TV Guide smash in 1977. John Sebastien, who was an accomplished artist throughout the 1970’s was tasked to write the song for the new show “Kotter”. The producers loved the song so much, they added “Welcome Back” to the title and the rest was history. The song hit #1 on the Billboard US charts in May 1976 and it lives on in it’s soft rock all-time classics.
4. The Dukes of Hazzard – Waylon Jennings
The show lives on in the annals of TV history. A tale of two Georgia boys (were we really supposed to believe they were young) who “had trouble with the law since the day they were born”. The show was a going concern from 1979-1985 and has left us with defining characters like Cooter, Boss Hogg and Rosco P Coltrane, sliding across car hoods to jump through welded door windows and the defining teenager image of Daisy Duke in her well, Daisy Duke’s. The show always kicked off with a couple of amazing moments: they always jump a car over a bridge and essentially destroy it’s front end (they had to have killed a million General Lee ’69 Dodge Chargers) and the Balladeer, Waylon Jennings, weave us though the ballad of the “Gold Ole’ boys”. If you don’t love this show, there is no hope for you in the world and if you can’t sign the first verse of this classic, I feel sad for your childhood. Yea haw hoo.
To me, these were a slam dunk top 4 TV themes. There have been many other great ones but it seems that as the years have gone on, the art of of great theme song has been lost to simple tunes, easily skipped on Netflix and cold opens where you couldn’t care less what the cast was. You can differ with me and that’s what makes the debate fun. Hit me with your additions or subtractions and let the debate roll on.
It used to be this easy. Roll back into town, make a few lunches and send the squirts back to class. This classic Staples commercial is my favourite reminder of what back to school joy to mean for us parents and the faces on most of our kids. 2020 is going to be a completely different ballgame.
Where do go from here? Kids are back in class in most areas, being eased in before the long weekend with a whole bunch of new rules to manage around, no lockers to store stuff and a whole bunch of face masks that make it hard to know what anyone is smiling and saying. In Alberta, we have just seen a spree of teachers and support staff come through pharmacies to get swabbed and tested for COVID with the hope that they can set a baseline for themselves starting the year. We have also now had the first of the school outbreaks in some schools and the uncertainty starts from here. Only a small percentage of parents opted for their kids to school from home and the rest of the kids are in class again starting tomorrow.
There is no right or wrong answer here for parents or kids. Our experience with the web-based schooling in the fall was a difficult one. The teachers did a great job adapting to the style and preparing a new way of teaching. The issue was more so the fact that as working parents, we did a poor job of managing the boys through the challenges involved, starting with getting their asses on the computer! Hard to know what’s right for each family and if you are blessed with an educator at home, you may be smarter to keep the kids there too. For those of us who work, we rely on the school system to teach our kids while we keep the economy moving. What are the best steps to take:
Continue to get tested
In Alberta, I applaud the Government for making testing readily available for those that need it (symptomatic) but also for those who are forced to work in larger cohorts (asymptomatic) and have the risk attached to that. Armed with that, parents can have their kids tested as frequently as desired and better manage the seasonal cold realities. Your local pharmacies can test for people who have not been in contact with a positive case and who have no symptoms as listed by AHS. Set up a plan with your family to have them tested as often as possible.
2. Stay home if you have any of the symptoms
Seems obvious now but that makes for some tough decisions for parents. It is the only thing to do when faced with a child who has the seasonal flu and we should all take the decision out of the school’s hands. If you have older children, the issue is often whether they are telling you how they are feeling so we need to create some honest communication with kids along the way.
3. Get the Flu shot in October
This is essential for protection against the regular flu and this year you will not want to face the problems related to COVID compounded with the seasonal flu. Some reports out of South America are reporting that the strains of flu are responding to the vaccine this year. There are also studies that show that getting the vaccine is helping lessen the effects of COVID, should you contract the virus. Alberta has purchased only enough vaccine for 45% of Albertans and this will put demand on the vaccine. Get this as early as you can when it launches in October.
All we can do is do the right things at home and protect your family from COVID, through the interactions we have daily. Educate the kids on the things they can do and the importance of why school being open is important. If the cases jump and the schools close up, we will all face a challenge that will hamper the kids for years to come. Do the right thing now.
Alright, we have taken on soda pop and candy bars so it makes perfect sense that we would tackle the greatest potato chip favours the world has ever seen. To do this correctly, we have to establish what a potato chip is and what is not. Doritos are not. Corn chips are not. Popcorn chips are not. I will accept other kinds of potato, like sweet potato, as potato chips. Baked or fried, the all count. Let’s not get any delusions here about what makes the potato chip the world’s best salty snack item.
The next debate is on what constitutes a flavour and how many combinations of flavour make it a truly great chip. As the Earth has lost its mind further and ups the ante monthly with the craziest new flavour, we sometimes need to assess whether less is more. I’m willing to accept any flavour that has made it through the marketing departments of these companies. If they thought it was smart to have “sweat sock” chips on the racks at the supermarket, I can accept that. I can also accept all brands, from around the world. If they can make chips with better potato than the ones from Idaho who am I to argue. With that, let’s establish my Mount Rushmore or potato chips in no particular order:
Predominantly found on the Hawaiian islands, these chips are the gold standard of kettle style chips and their flavours represent the region accurately. Mango habanero are amazing along with luau BBQ but the go to flavour is sweet onion. They are the perfect mix of sweet and salty and the kettle cooked style are better than the kinds we see in Canada. You can find them around as they have become a popular import from Hawaii and certainly need to be put in your plans to bring back along with the almighty Macadamia nut.
2. Ruffles All-Dressed chips
If you are a Canadian chip connoisseur, there is no way a list can be complete without the might All-dressed flavour. The flavour consists of a combination of BBQ, ketchup, salt & vinegar and sour cream & onion. Two Quebec brothers created the first iteration of this magic formula in 1978 and they changed the chip world. Americans would come to Canada simply to bring back the holy grail of flavours and now they are available in some brands south of the border. The key: ripple chips to better hold the flavour and really kick you in the jaw when you eat them. Our friends at Ruffles have created the best (and greasiest) version of the ripple chip and the combination is lethal. I dare you, compare them against other All-dressed and you will get it.
3. Old Dutch Dill Pickle chips
I will fight you if you try to argue that Lays chips are better than Old Dutch! There is no chance that the Americans make a better overall chip than our friends from Winnipeg ever have. Try the taste test and confirm for yourself and better yet try the sample of Dill Pickle chips while you do it. Dill and chips were just made for each other. Like PB & Jam, Oil & vinegar and Abbott and Costello, some tandems are just better together than they are apart. The dill flavouring on the Old Dutch brand are incredible and they leave a great after taste after to crunch a bag. Dill is a common flavour across North America but we have a great version in our backyard. The only way they could be better is if they came in the classic Old Dutch boxes we all grew up with.
4. Jalapeno Pringles
Pringles truly are the perfect potato chip. They mastered the art of making the chip more important than the damn flavour and once they stepped outside of the core 4 flavours (original, BBQ, sour cream and salt/vinegar) and put their creative hats on they took the product to the next stratosphere. We gladly will pay premium prices for a tube, that has half the volume of a bag of chips. The damn tube alone was an amazing marketing ploy and will have the product live on forever. You can’t go wrong with many of their flavours really, but Jalapeño chips are an art that should not be abused. Here’s the skinny on their Jalapeño. It’s the perfect combo of sweet and heat. The pressure of the heat builds up on you after you inevitably eat 2/3 of the tube and at that point you realize that you have a Pringles problem and that you are prepared to lie, cheat and steal to keep the tube away from anyone who wants what you have. Really you can’t go wrong with any of the flavours but Jalapeño is a tremendous addition to the gang. Damn you Pringles for ruining chips for the rest of the world.
Based on the comments from the last few posts, I’m sure you will have an opinion on where I made a fatal mis-step in this top 4. Comment along and share in the fun around chips. Times are tough out there but at least we can always argue about the important things in the world, like chips.
Who doesn’t love candy bars? Not only are they one of the most contested debates on what the greatest ones are, you have the crazy variance in brands from country to country. Those territorial differences force you to to sample the bars from where you are and eventually you find something that you have never tasted before and convinces you that you should hunt said bar down every time you come back.
Most of us in Canada are partial to some of the exclusive-Canadian chocolate bars that you can’t find elsewhere. Crunchie, Coffee Crisp, Mirage and Mr.Big are examples of bars that aren’t found outside of Canada. Canadians take that stuff serious and are almost offended when you consider a non-Canadian chocolate bar better than our home grown supply. The truth is that there are good bars in other parts of the world too and I have tried many of them. In the tradition of the Mount Rushmore monument, here are my top four candy bars of all-time.
Crispy Crunch – Cadbury Canada
You can’t be Canadian and have never tried one of these bad boys. Originally made by chocolate counterpart Neilson, this bar hit the landscape in the 70’s and it’s mixture of peanut butter and a crispy flake mixed with a milk chocolate coating. The signature taste of that glorious flaky peanut better centre is unmatched by anything else I have tried. Go down to the corner store right now and grab one of these glorious buggers. The only thing better than Crispy Crunch is someone else’s!
2. Peanut Butter Oh Henry – Hershey Canada
Oh Henry! is a great bar in it’s own right but add in the magic of Reese and you have a chocolate bar that will change your life. The original version started in the 1920’s with its combination of peanuts, caramel and fudge has been a Canadian staple since that point. You don’t see the PB version of the bar nearly as often as the original yellow bar but chase one down and tell me it isn’t the best thing you have ever had. On top of it all, they created Canadian commercial lore with their memorable “Big chunk of fudddddggggggeeeeee”
3. Baby Ruth – Nestle USA
As a sports fan, this was the one bar that I always wanted to have as a kid but couldn’t get as it was only available in the USA. It took me several years before I could try it and although it resembles the aforementioned Oh Henry bar, it is very different. A couple of factoids around Baby Ruth’s history:
The original manufacturer was located on the same street as Wrigley Field in Chicago and it has always had a strong baseball them since then.
The bar is not named after the baseball player BABE RUTH but actually claims to be named after the daughter of former President Grover Alexander.
The bar is featured prominently in the movie “Caddyshack” as the floating chocolate bar in the pool scene. Obviously they didn’t think it was a chocolate bar…
4. Kit Kat – Nestle Canada
It’s one of my vice’s at Halloween time. I used to say to the kids that when they would bring their bags home they had to immediately “pay the tax man”. They have always remembered that term in life but never really realized what the tax was. Mini Kit Kats. There is something about the way the chocolate tastes against the wafer and how it melts in your mouth. Just amazing stuff and there is something equally satisfying about snapping off a stick and chowing down. Great bar.
Where did I go wrong here? There are some great bars that didn’t make my list that may have made yours. Have some fun with it and let me know what bar you have to have on your list.
Here we go again with another Mount Rushmore of my top 4 carbonated soda choices. As the world knows, our neighbours to the south are the geniuses behind the explosion of soda choices in the world. They are so much more creative than we are in the art of mashing something into an existing product and making it better. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s we saw a large influx of “pop” enter the stores and we have never been shy of choice since then. There are thousands of choices you could make here but here is by spin at the best tasting of all-time.
Sierra Mist – PepsiCo USA
This brand of beverage has never come to Canada and is a must find if you are the USA. It’s a simple lemon/lime soda, much like 7up and Sprite but is has a crisp taste that is not too high in sweetness and sugar. It ws born in 1999 as companies went looking for variations on the lemon/lime taste and they stumbled across gold. It has endured some formula evolution over the decades largely staying true to the original success, replacing fructose with sucrose and eventually adding stevia as the sweetener. Pick up a case when you are down south next time.
2. Canada Dry Cranberry Ginger Ale – Dr. Pepper Corp
Good ole’ Canada Dry is an institution in this country and in the last 50 years, throughout the world. It may be one of the most recognizable Canadian brands ever and has always been a premium product across the globe. Ginger Ale was it’s most impactful product dating back to 1904 and really took off during prohibition where is was deemed the best liquid to properly mask the smell of liquor. A pretty steep history! Since then, they have tried to find ways to re-invent the wheel and the best combination is their mix of ginger ale and cranberry which is tremendous by itself and even better in a mixed drink.
3. Tahiti Treat
Anyone born in the 70’s or sooner will remember the classic Tahiti Treat beverage. The greatest part of Tahiti Treat is the way it vanishes from store shelves for 10 years and suddenly it’s back and it’s like it never left your life. It combines the fizzy goodness of pop with the sweetness of juice punch. Like a fizzy Kool-are drink that delivers more than the sum of its parts. It’s weaker cousins C-Plus and Hawaiian Punch can’t hold a candle to this monster. It’s so popular that Drake chases the product down in obscure places throughout Canada and it has become the holy grail of summer drinks. You are a true pop aficionado if you drink the Tahitian Treat with any regularity.
4. Old Jamaica Ginger Beer
Ginger Beer is an acquired taste and the varying brands range from difficult to swallow to literally nostril burning. Not my old friend from Jamaica, Old Jamaica Ginger Beer. It’s one of the few that you can crack in a can, pour over ice with a lime garnish or when feeling sporting, mix in some dark run for arguably the greatest cocktail known to man, the Dark & Stormy. There is a tale to be told of a warm night pounding Dark’s in the Jamaican heat that warms my heart. OJGB has the right combination of spice and sweet to make anything go. I have tried them all and might be a connoisseur of the beverage but if you haven’t tried ginger beer, you are missing one of the great hidden gems in the beverage category.
That’s my top 4 and I challenge you to do better. What have I missed here and what is your argument as to why it’s in your Mount Rushmore? Compel me to try something new!
These are always some of my favourite topics and the ones that create the most controversy on the web. No matter who you are and what you do, we love to rank things in our lives. There are hundreds of categories of things that we keep track of and are continually deciding whether the next item is memorable enough to get into our “top 10”. Selecting 10 of anything in a category is tricky but when you boil it down there can only be and handful of “hall of fame” selections in the category. I have aptly named these my Mount Rushmore, in deference to the incredible US monument.
The fascinating part of that monument is not the marvel that led to sculptors carving massive faces of President’s Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln into the South Dakota mountainside . It’s the fact that they were able to narrow the best US leaders down to 4 only and because they are literally carved in stone, there is no altering the faces and no addition of the greats that came afterwards. Our Mount Rushmore can be flexible, exchangeable and arguable to the point where you will have your own top 4. The other point is that when you get down to the best 4 ever, there is no need to rank them. They are all great and all deserve to be in the pantheon of their realm. Today we look at boxed cereal. Let the fight begin.
Raisin Bran – Kelloggs
Raisin Bran has been around for ever and unlike other legacy cereals, the formula has not changed much over the years. The bran starts crunchy and eventually soaks up the milk. The raisins stay firm throughout and have just the right amount of sugar frosting to make them something just short of candy. You can go away from the cereal for years, pick up a box and launch back in like you have never left its comforting grip. Try it again, it’s worth the reminder of what makes it great.
2. Honey Bunches of Oats -Post
Your dad can have its predecessor Corn Flakes but you should be diving into a box of Honey Bunches of Oats. Whether it’s the wide variety of additional flavours and toppings (strawberry, almond, vanilla etc) stick with the classic honey roasted. The chunks of granola mixed with bran and corn flakes lightly frosted are divine. It’s one of those cereals that you have a bowl and then two more and you realize you should have bought the family size box. an amazing combination of goodness. You can settle for its brother cereal, Vector but HBOO is the only correct answer.
3. Honeycomb – Post
Maybe the king of junk cereal, Honeycomb is an amazing cereal experience. This is the one cereal where your selection of milk really matters. The science of the cereal design literally traps the milk in the combs and is the most glorious part of each bite you take. The frosting provides a respectable force field against the milk making the bowl soggy and re-using the milk from your inaugural bowl only makes the second and third bowls more magnificent. Ask your kids, they know a great junk cereal when they see one and the beacon of red coming from the oversized box sucks them in every time. Amazing.
4. Crispix – Kelloggs
One of the greatest things about cereal is its versatility. Rice Krispies are boring as a cereal but great in baking. Mini Wheats are tough to eat in a bowl with milk, but you can eat them as a snack. Crispix is top tier in its versatility to be a simple but tasty combination of a corn flake and rice when mixed with milk OR the key ingredient in your munchie mix snack combo. Throw this into a bowl with some peanuts, pretzels, bugles, and spice and you have Super Bowl Sunday. The drawback is that you need to be ninja quick when you mix into milk to eat it before the milk disintegrates the cereal fibres into cream of wheat.
There are others that could be on the Honourable Mention list but there is now statue of Obama in the Mount Rushmore parking lot so there will be no participation ribbons here. Add your comments here and let me know what your favourite cereals are. Happy binging!
It’s no easy task thinking back to when you were 13 years old. My grade 8 brain had all sorts of notions about where life would go and what it would mean to be successful. Man was I an idiot. The best part of that year was the fact that we wrote ourselves a letter that was supposed to be opened when we turned 50 years old. By some stroke of luck, I found the seed envelope a few months ago and told the story to Mary. She was fascinated by the concept that something I wrote to myself had been unopened for this long. What had I written? What would I become? An astronaut? A baseball player? All I could think about were the stupid things my teenage mind would have written. Time will tell as I will open it in 2022 but for now I figured I would take stock against the things a 13 year old thinks makes you successful.
Strike out – Own a house with a pool (indoor would be awesome!)
No chance here. For one, we live in Calgary where you might be able to use a pool for 8 days a year. Not much value in that. Secondly, it one of those things that is the kind of luxury that very few people have the money to buy and less have the money to support. My luxury money has better uses.
YES! – Own a Big, Big, Big screen TV
That always seemed like something only the rich people would have. When you were 13, you were happy to have a 21″ colour TV and by 1985, you had at least a dozen channels to watch. The real lucky ones had a Superchannel cable box and more programming than you could imagine. In those days, all the good stations we on cable boxes and those of us without it were shut out. Like any typical teenage boy, we would spend late evenings watching the CBC French channel hoping to catch the occasional nudity or something dirty that only existed on the French channel. Now we take for granted that we all have TV’s larger than life and 900 channels of stuff we never knew we cared about. The is always a bigger TV out there somewhere and mine certainly isn’t the biggest around but the combined amount of screen in this house would make one hell of a TV.
YES! – A car phone
You know the ones from 1985, the phone built into the dashboard of your car or even better yet, built into the backseat! Nobody I knew had anything like the ones on TV and you would have thought that it would have been one of those things that would never happen. Suddenly, the microprocessor is created and we have phones that can basically do anything. It’s not the way I envisioned it back when I was 13 but I essentially watched a movie on my phone today and that’s amazing to me still.
YES! – A home basketball hoop that looked like an NBA hoop
This was another pipe dream for the pre-teen basketball fan. Most of us has a wooden pole with a wood backboard. If you were lucky, you had something mounted to the roof of the garage to shoot at. Even the luckiest of kids, had nothing that resembled the pro version. In today’s world, you can buy some sweet hoops now. We are lucky the boys are totally into basketball and we have a cup de sac to use it in so we bought one of those sweet hoops for them to enjoy. No wood backboards for these guys.
YES! – A home computer
You remember the computer of the 1980’s…
Nope, I didn’t have a Commodore 64 or an original Apple or even an early version of a PC. It took us until the mid-90’s before I invested my hard-earned dollars into my first PC. It was a clunky piece of shit but it was amazing. It connected me to things that my brain never had even thought of outside of my ole’ Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias. Like we all did in the 80’s, we just wanted to be a part of the digital world. I was lucky to have an Atari 2600 to see what happened to the video game console evolution but through sampling programming and other simple computer options when in school, you wanted to have one of these things. It seems pretty trivial now with the technology we now see.
Being 13, these “might” be the kind of things that I would have written about in that time capsule letter. It could always be worse, as I might have written about the following:
Time will tell what my adolescent mind used valuable paper and ink to write about. It will be fascinating to me no matter what it says. My advice is get your kids to write something down for themselves as 50 years comes faster than you could imagine. Can you only imagine the amazing things they will predict will be in their future!
Canada is an amazing country with amazing sights and things to do. I love most everything about it and its people. There is one thing I could do without is the weather. Thankfully, the weather mostly turns around in June and if we’re lucky, it lasts until October. The shortness of the warm season is one of the big drawbacks of living north of the 49th parallel. Like a lot of us Canadians, we clamour for the warmth and try to pack in as much as possible as we can into these months. Covid-19 has made this year’s summer solstice more complicated than other years prior. I have some very specific things that I need to get done this summer to make it complete.
Simple time spent outdoors
It seems like the logical starting point for summer but easier said than done when things like work chew into the available daytime hours. This would be an easier task if you could wake pop everyday and just hit the outdoors but not totally realistic at this point of my life. My best ways to capture some of of the rays come from the the combination of evening walks with the pups, playing some family basketball and getting some selected moments with the family sitting on the deck. Getting outside doesn’t always have to be momentous, it just needs to be outside.
Lake-time Living
Mary has always been the driving force behind this in our family. I didn’t grow up camping, had done a bit in my early 20’s and with the boys when they were younger but largely never developed the full itch. What I did develop the itch for was the simplicity of sitting in the sun and doing very little. I like to read and write and there is no better time sitting in a lawn chair to do either. Oh sure, there are traditional lake fun things to do like boating and swimming but the best times are had sitting in the sun and soaking it up. Mary was right. Camping can be fun if you are with the right people and the sun is out.
Take up a new sport – biking
Like the old adage goes, Before buying a lighter bike, start by making yourself lighter. I could use some new exercise in my life after Covid took its toll on my routine and I think biking may be it. I have been on some recent rides and realized that it might be the perfect storm of my favourite things to do; exercise, music & sunshine. There are so many amazing places to bike in Calgary and I plan to try and explore many that I’ve never seen. I would also like it if Mary would take this up with me as I think it would be amazing to have a partner along for those rides.
Spend some time with Mary, outdoors.
We spent the early part of Covid doing some work around the house inside and out. The weather was pretty good in mid-April and we took advantage of the time. She loves to camp and I’m a fair-weather camper. I like to exercise outside and she likes to do her work inside. I am not a fan of the rain and she is not deterred by it. Through all of that, we generally like being outside more than inside and we will do as much of that as possible in July/August. I think I’ve finally realized that it’s less important what we are doing and more important that we do it together. There is no better place to hang out doing something, outdoors with her.
Do some travel within Alberta and Canada.
Normally, we would be using the summer months to travel to destinations unknown, trying to get away from normal life in Canada. This year, it’s time to do exactly the opposite and stay closer to home. Let me be clear, I am not a “staycation” guy. It’s impossible to escape the business needs and this model won’t work for me. But you don’t have to get very far away from home/work for you to turn things off and relax. Seeing parts of Alberta is something we all should do, and do it in a way that allows you to soak it all in. We don’t spend nearly enough time in the mountains and there are some amazing parts of the eastern part of the Province that need to be seen. I think we are all looking for new adventures to take us places this summer. Travel close to home, wherever you live.
There will come a day where Mary and I will spend parts of our year in places with far better weather than Calgary. In the meantime, the 2020 goal is to embrace the summer Calgary-style. There are amazing things to see and do here and why not do it during the best weather of the year. Take on your own personal challenge to spend more time outdoors, wherever you are this summer.
There is no doubt to anyone who is a parent, that it is a lifelong responsibility. Speak to your grandparents about the evolution of worries that occur throughout your life when it comes to the care for your kids. The dynamic of letting your kids go and be adults has it’s own fears, separate from the fears you hold trying to get them though the first 18 years of their lives. There is a responsibility we hold and I hold the responsibility to turn 4 four young men into great men in this world.
I am blessed to have 4 boys in my life, 2 that I helped create and 2 that I’m luck that they have come into my life through their amazing mom. They have a great dad in their life too but being the younger siblings in a larger family changes the dynamic for them here. They are learning and absorbing from the older boys, good or bad, in every situation. As the father in this house I have to navigate the difficult situations that arise daily in this place, I don’t always make the right decision but I make the best one I can.
With an age range of 23 down to 11 years old, there are some varying levels of conversation in the course. Here are my simple (really is anything simple with boys) rules of engagement with these knuckleheads:
The Older Boys need to respect the Younger ones
This has been easy as they have enough of an age gap that they have different interests at this point. They aren’t competing against each other for anything and don’t cross over with one another. They all play basketball now and have that bond but don’t need to prove they are better than each other. In their own way, they respect each other.
Be Who you Are
They have many common interests and many that are diverse. Some are driving, some are learning and some are no where near that. Some have girlfriends and others do not. They all are different in their ways and you have to encourage that to come out.
Respect one Another and your Parents
This one is a tough one for me. There is ALOT of man talk in this house and it is dripping with attitude and bravado. I like to encourage their freedom of communication, no matter how aggressive it has to be expressed. It leads to confrontation with Mary and I and often feelings get hurt between parents and kids but expression is the best way to get feelings out and sometimes we just need to take one on the chin for it. I try to make sure that respect stays within the context but it’s pretty free-flowing when it happens.
Do Your Part to Contribute
Mary is the master of this one as she has found ways to keep these guys doing their own work around the house. They should help more than they do and I still seem to be the only one who knows how to use a lawnmower but they do their part. Fold your laundry or do your own. Make dinner once a week for everyone. Walk the dogs. Put your damn dishes in the dishwasher! Every once in awhile they even help each other with basketball, schoolwork or even life advice.
Find common interests
There are 2 big ones in this house: basketball and video games. The first one is easy as they get outside and play, with or against each other. There is some cross-training and a lot of shit-talking to each other is they make a mistake. There is no mercy if you are young or old (in my case) so figure it out. Video games is more fascinating as they all play roughly the same games and they are all a different “rank” in the games. Age means nothing here and they are constantly picking each other’s minds on what works. We have 2 separate internet providers in this house for a reason as 4 Xboxes and 4 streaming phones (at the same time!) crews through a bunch of gigs of data.
Curb your Bad Influences
We have all done it and are all guilty of it. We ask of each other that we curb those bad influences around one another. No drugs, no excessive drinking, limit the swearing and no girls sleeping over. No small task with these guys around but we try very hard to live to this.
So what does it all mean?
We are not your typical family. We are a blended family that works very hard to make this one family, even too exhaustion for Mary and myself. As the oldest man in this house, I have a responsibility to be the best of them all and I am no bowl of peaches some days. I struggle to bring the energy to the boys that they need, to teach them and guide them. That energy has to come from somewhere and there is only so much to go around. What I have learned is that you don’t need to make big impacts in their lives when it’s really the small ones that make up the fabric of who they are. Talking to them about their day at school, a small congratulations for something they did, a recognition for putting their dishes away, or giving them an extra 15 minutes to play their game before shut down makes the bigger impact. Above all, boys are an emotional sort and you have to allow that expression, even at the peril of what you get from it. I need to be the main referee of those event and often I have to step in and be the lightning rod for their madness.
That’s the role a dad plays the lives of their sons. We teach and coach, lecture and referee, argue and listen, yell and wrestle. Above all, try to hug your boys and tell them what they mean to you as this will go the furthest towards turning them into the kind of men who will become future great fathers.
It was some of the darkest days in baseball. The sport was coming out of the 1994 lockout and had lost millions of fans from that debacle. Baseball was looking for something to rejuvenate interest in the sport and was desperate for anything positive to latch onto. Cal Ripkin and his iron man streak gave the sport a small boost in 1995 but it was short lived. This ESPN 30 for 30 documentary-story weaves us through the period of time where baseball overlooked the devil within to put baseball back on the map.
Before we look at the positives, you have to at least acknowledge the underlying issue built around the chase for the single season home run record. To that point, the record was held by Roger Maris who famously hit 61 home runs in 1961 and had his own challenges in surpassing the legend of Babe Ruth. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa went toe to toe in the summer of 1998 and looked to be a sure thing to surpass the record despite the speculation about steroids being the impetus for the power surge. Years after the record was broken, it was proven that steroids riddles the statistics and records of that era but did anyone really care. Those who hold the records in hallowed grounds have never accepted that McGwire held the record at 70 (until Barry Bonds broke the record under his own cloud of steroids in 2001 with 73). Those who were riveted by the chase that year choose not to care and simply describe it as a magical summer. Here are our winners for the Rewatchables Long Gone Summer.
Most Rewindable moment – the moment where you are flipping the channels and you catch this part only to be sucked into rewinding to the start of the movie.
The “Did you touch my drum kit” award – not necessarily the quote that the world remembers but the one that someone who has seen the movie 25 times would know exactly what movie this is from. Bonus points if you know which show this quote is from.
Best “microwave” actor – the actor who hits the screen with their hair on fire and owns their scenes in such a dominating fashion. Small scenes, big value.
Best “Over the Top” acting moment – the actor who dials it up like this is the moment that he/she wants on the “In Memoriam” snippet at the 2044 Oscars.
The “What show have I seen him/her in before” award – you know, the actor who you’ve seen in 100 shows and never know their name. Every movie has that person.
The “That makes no sense moment” – You know what I mean when you see something that makes no logical sense. That moment.
Bonus category – Unanswerable questions – I love this stuff where the movie ends but the questions linger on. I have no answers but lots of questions.
Most Rewindable Moment – Mark McGwire Batting Practice
The documentary was clearly focused on showing you what you came here for, the home run. Throughout the 2 hours, it shows you all of the major milestone dingers of the year for all players involved and those moments Bring you right back to where you were in 1998.
To me the rewindable moment came in the 30 seconds where it focused on McGwire hitting bombs in batting practice and having thousands of fans oohing and ahhhhing along with every laser off his bat. The sheer magnitude of the way he hit these baseballs and the length of distance was jaw dropping and sucks you in for the rest of the show.
The “Did you touch my drum kit” award – Sammy Sosa
There were some great quotes throughout this documentary.
“You would have 5,000 people at batting practice just there to watch McGwire hit”, Chip Carey, broadcaster
“No-one talks to me about getting to 50 homers, everyone wants to talk about 60 or 61 but you have no idea how hard it is just to get to 50.” McGwire press conference.
“Dad always regretted hitting 61 homers that year and was labelled as a on-hit wonder after that. He just dealt with it after he did it”. Maris’ son
The quote that struck me the greatest was the one that Sammy Sosa doesn’t actually answer. Sosa has repeatedly been asked about the rumour that he too took steroids throughout that era. It has haunted he and McGwire so much that neither one of them has been elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Sosa has taken a particularly large beating over the speculation and because he has not even acknowledged the issue, he was dropped from the HOF ballot. In the documentary, he is asked the question again around whether he took steroids during that season and his answer was more more confusing than ever, answering a question with a question.
Why do they focus on me when everyone in that era [took steroids]? I’m not a bad guy.”
True but has the lesson of telling the truth not taught these guys anything? Pete Rose is paying the piper for 20 years of denial and is still not in the Hall while others who float the truth have been exonerated.
Best “microwave” actor – Roger Maris & the Maris family
I have always had an amazing amount of respect for Roger Maris. He was the epitome of class throughout his career and being an understated gentlemen, the chase of the Babe’s HR record took its toll on him. His son told the story how Roger was losing his hair in clumps under the undying pressure from the fans and media haunting him daily. On top of the chase, he has the added pressure that the Commissioner of Baseball, Ford Frick, claimed that the record would no be considered broken unless he did it in the same or less number of games than the Bambino did it in (154 games).
There are snippets of interviews with Maris laced into the documentary along with several interviews with Maris’ son. The Maris family was actively involved in the backdrop of that summer, following the frontrunner, McGwire around the country as he approached the number. They too said all the right things and showed their class when McGwire hit number 62. Deep down, they must also wonder whether the record was broken legitimately, or under the premise of drugs that you couldn’t fathom in 1961. No matter what, they never cracked and still haven’t and baseball is better for Roger Maris.
Best “Over the Top” acting moment – Jack Buck broadcaster
In fairness, it can’t be easy being the broadcaster who has the responsibility to tell the world that you have just seen something that you have never seen before. Many a great broadcaster has spent hours off microphone, crafting the perfect message for just that moment. Jack Buck was the St Louis Cardinals broadcaster for the previous 40 seasons and had seen it all. He had never seen anything like this travelling circus and the hype that followed these guys. As McGwire climbed the HR ladder 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, Buck needed to continue to weave the story for folks at home.
Buck was no stranger to baseball history. He has some of the greatest calls in the history of the game (You Tube Kirby Puckett Game 6 and Kirk Gibson 1988 for nostalgic purposes). When he called the 62nd homer, he literally had tears streaming down his face. If that’s not the most moving moment of the doc, you have no heart. Take a listen. It’s a worthwhile couple of minutes of one of the greatest broadcasters in sports history.
The “What show have I seen him/her in before” award – The 1998 Montreal Expos
One of the things that struck me greatly was the impact that the now defunct, Montreal Expos played in the race to the HR lead. They were a party to the best sequence in the documentary starting with Sammy Sosa overtaking McGwire for the HR lead on September 25, 1998. Sosa hits his 66th dinger that afternoon to take the lead leaving the exhausted McGwire wondering whether the record would be out of reach, with only a handful of games left in the season. Sosa had been in the groove to catch the leader and McGwire had been flagging in previous games. He needed a response and the poor Expos were the victim for his rebuttal. Take a look at the barrage that Les Expos endured once McGwire felt the heat to keep the record:
After Sosa hits a 462 foot bomb vs the Astros, McGwire tortures the Expos for 5 homers in 3 games against a “where are they now” list of former Montreal Expos pitchers. Unfortunately for Canadian baseball fans, this may have been the last time that the Expos were playing in relevant baseball games with a national audience before they moved to Washington in 2002.
The “That makes no sense moment” – Tim Fornaris Cardinals groundskeeper
This was a part of the epilogue that I had forgotten about and has totally blocked out of my memory. The baseball’s that each of the men had hit for homers leading up to the record were worth thousands to the lucky patrons who caught them. The world speculated that the ball that eventually would break the record, could be worth $1 million dollars to the person who possessed it. Little would the world know that that September day, McGwire would hit his shortest homer of the season, basely clearing the 361 foot mark of the left field fence. This meant that it would not be a fan that would hold the ball, it would be someone in the Cardinals bullpen. That person, Tim Fornaris was a groundskeeper who was responsible to collect the falling streamers from the raucous Busch Stadium crowd. While sprinting to the field, he picked up the the rolling ball and stuck it in his pocket. The amazing part of the story; days later, he presents the ball to McGwire in a on-field ceremony and forgoing the potential riches he held in his hand. He will never know what it was worth but Spawn creator Todd MacFarlane purchased the 70th homer ball for $3 million months later.
Unanswerable Questions and Conclusions
Here is what I am left wondering:
Would McGwire and Sosa both be Hall of Famers by now, if they had admitted to the steroids? I say No here as the fate of the HOF ballot is left to the writers, many of whom still hold these two responsible for selling the game. They may both be on the ballot still but I think they are still on the outside looking in.
Would the season have as many warm feelings if Sosa had been the Home Run champion? Again, I say No here. The fact that Sosa was a Latin American born player with limited command of English (especially when he was under scrutiny), makes me doubt that the American audience would have soaked this in the same way.
Would Ken Griffey Jr. have been a better foe for McGwire in the chase? I say Yes as KGJ was America’s baseball sweetheart in this era. He was a 5 tool player who would go onto hit over 600 homers lifetime and become a first ballot Hall of Famer. He was in the race until August when he went on a horrendous slump and ended up with 56 dingers.
What event would have brought fans back if this never happened? The easy answer is Barry Bonds breaking this record a few years later in 2002 but I will say the first games after 9/11 would have bonded fans to coming back. What’s more patriotic than Lee Greenwood in a leather US flag jacket singing “God Bless the USA”. before a game?
Some will say that this season ruined the game for years to come. Baseball and the powers at hand, ignored the steroid issue during the year and reaped the reward of TV audiences and crowds not seen since. The documentary wasn’t hard hitting enough for my liking, eventually letting both combatants off the hook from telling the truth about their abuse of steroids. That was the true story here and an opportunity to set the record straight but ESPN missed the mark. MLB reaped the reward for the ignorance and sometimes you just need to take advantage of a positive situation when it happens. MLB certainly benefitted by the frantic chase these two put on and the game moved into the new century stronger than it left the old one. McGwire and Sosa should be in the Hall if for no other reason than they saved the game.
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