I guess I’m in a sentimental mood lately, but I was touched by the piece below written by a good friend of mine who happens to be blind.  His guide dog died today, and he sat down and wrote this tribute to him.  I’m an animal lover myself and could instantly relate, but the bond between a blind person and their guide dog is stronger that I think us sighted folks can even understand.  A good guide dog rightfully gets most of the credit for giving his owner what limited measure of independence he enjoys.  Having to depend on others for basic things that you and I take for granted—like finding the restroom in a crowded restaurant or going to the mailbox to get the mail or taking a walk around the block—can be virtually impossible for the visually impaired without the help of another person or a trained guide dog.   Doug’s dog Laddy died today, but he will not be soon forgotten by anyone who knew him.

 

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Laddy is gone. He was 9 years, 1 month, and 12 days old.

This, of course, will not do him justice, but a quick look at a few highlights of my seven years with him...

 

Laddy

By Doug Tingler

 

New York City, New York--Laddy and I had our own miracle on 34th Street, walked by the Empire State Building, Times Square, rode a subway, went to Macy's and ate at the largest restaurant in Manhattan which at that time was the All American Sports something or another.
This experience was intense, it was great, and it was something I would have probably never done if I had not met Laddy.

 

Shawnee Jr. High, Shawnee, Oklahoma--I wanted to take a quick tour of my old junior high school. This building is now the Board of Education (the old red brick building by the park). One day Laddy and I were near there, and I got bold and went in the front door. I had a plan, go to the stairs on the north end, go up one flight and back down the stairs on the south end and back out. It is hard to go unnoticed when you have a large black lab in an office building, but we turned right and went to the end of the hall. At the end of the hall, sometime in the past 30 years someone had built a wall with a door, so we went through the door, and I closed it behind us thinking that we would be in a stairwell. As it turned out, we were in a janitor’s closet, so I decided to come out of the closet. We then walked by the main receptionist as she was asking "Can I help you?" I gave her a quick "No thank you" and continued to the south end of the hall. Oh no, again there was not a staircase but a wall with a door. I opened the door, and we went through, this time there were stairs leading down but not up. Running out of choices, we started down until I realized that the entire floor was dark so we quickly and happily exited the building. Laddy always wondered what that trip into the old Jr. High was about.

 

Chicago, Illinois--Something Laddy and I did together that really stands out is the Cubs game. We were at the historic Wrigley Field in Chicago to see the Cubs hosting the Mets. Bratwurst, cold beer and baseball... it doesn't get much better than that. As things turned out, one of the guys in our group did not show, so Laddy not only got to go to the game, he had his own seat! It was great, Laddy sat up proudly in his seat watching the game just as thousands of other Cub fans were doing. During the game, Laddy had a couple of peanuts with the guys, and I think that he may have even snuck a lap or two of my beer. I honestly think that he had as good a time as I did that day.

 

Kansas City, Missouri--It was OU in Kansas City for the championship game. One of the best restaurants I have ever been to was in, I think, Lee's Summit just outside Kansas City. It was a Cajun, jazz, blues, kinda place. Heck, it could have been BB King up there singing in the band, and the food was as good as the music. I was a little nervous taking Laddy into such a nice place--lots of people and noise and things going on. But he did fine; I don't remember having any problem with him at all. Oh, and BTW, the place was called Jazz, and, after that, Laddy always liked black blues singers.

 

Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Sulphur, Oklahoma--The park in Sulphur is one of my very favorite places on earth--partly because it is a nice little park, but mostly because of all of the great memories there growing up. Laddy and I went camping and hiking in the Sulphur area more than once. But one trip stands out because we went alone. Laddy and I always worked better as a team when we were alone or in a challenging situation. There we were, it was fall, and the weather was great. Laddy and I both had backpacks on with all kinds of gear and food. One of the things that attracts me to this park is that I am very familiar with the hiking trails. But despite that, one day I got lost for a few minutes. Seems that when Laddy would come to an intersection he would stop and lets me decide which way to go, but when he would come to a "Y" in the trail, he would just pick one... After I realized I was lost, we simply backtracked to a known point and went from there. These four days were very challenging and tiring, but it was great--I was totally independent and on my own out there... well not really, Laddy was with me the whole time.

 

Grand Canyon, Arizona--Laddy and I went to the Grand Canyon, a fascinating place. It was the first time I had been there since my early childhood. Somewhere along the line I developed a fear of heights, and we stayed back quite a ways from the edge, but as always Laddy loved the whole experience of being there, and so did I.

 

Appalachian Trail, Virginia--Most people that know me know that for years I have dreamed of hiking the Appalachian trail. If it were not for Laddy, I would have not gotten anywhere close to this dream. Laddy and I, along with my son, did make it to the AT for a couple of days on the trail. Laddy was great on the trail and loved camping.  He always thought it was funny to sleep in a small backpacking tent, and he loved the outdoors as much as I do. This was truly a great experience for both of us.

 

Myrtle Beach, S. Carolina--Laddy laid on the white powder sand of Myrtle Beach. He watched the waves roll in, over and over until he slowly fell asleep in paradise...and now that I think about it, I did the very same thing.

 

My great-aunt Lola Belle passed away on Thursday, January 4th.  We traveled to the west Texas town of Tahoka for her funeral the following Saturday.  I was asked to give part of the eulogy.  I wasn’t given much notice and wished I’d said more than I did, so you get to read what I wish I’d said.  Note that this was/is intended for a specific audience--my family--and was intended to be spoken, not read.  I usually try to follow Mark Twain and write the way people speak, but this piece is even more so as it is what I wished I'd said myself.

 

 

Aunt Belle lived a full and healthy life.  For most of her 94 years on this earth, she was in good health and had a clear mind.  While we will certainly miss her, her passing should not be merely a time to mourn, but also a time to celebrate—a time to rejoice in the full life she lived, the lives she touched, and the happiness she brought us all.  To that end, I’d like to share a few stories about her from my childhood.  Everyone in this room could probably do the same for she touched generation after generation of this family.

 

As many of you know, I grew up on a farm in Oklahoma.  We didn’t have a lot of money or this world’s goods.  We lived in a small wood frame house and got by the best we could.  I had a wealthy uncle who lived across the road from our place.  He seemed to have about everything a man could ask for—more money than he needed, a great wife and kids, a career he loved, a beautiful ranch, a mansion of a house—everything.  Ever so often, the Texas relations would come to town to see their kinfolk up north and almost without exception they prefered to lodge with my rich uncle at his palatial estate.  But not Aunt Belle.  Aunt Belle was plain folk.  She had no airs about her.  She and her brother, Uncle John T. always preferred to stay with us.  They’d spurn the extravagance of my uncle’s estate and sleep on our embarrassing little hide-a-bed in the living room and help out around our farm—that’s just the kind of people they were.  They were much more in their element with us, and that endeared them to us.  It always meant a lot to me personally, and I will never forget them for it.

 

“Festive” best describes the mood in our house when Aunt Belle would come to visit.  Having no family of her own, she’d stay with us for weeks at a time.  I remember the excitement of getting off the school bus and seeing her car sitting in our driveway off in the distance.  We knew we’d be in for some great down-home cooking, funny one-liners, wonderful stories, and all the rest, and we’d run all the way home to see her.

 

Despite already being up in years, Belle would jump right in and help out around our farm when she came to see us.  She was with us the first time we defeathered chickens by boiling their dead carcasses until the feathers fell off—anyone who’s ever done this will never forget the experience (or the smell).  She helped us plant many of our large truck gardens.  I can still see her in that broad-brim straw hat, in those polyester slacks suits she liked to wear, out there in our garden in 100-degree heat, working right along side us.  She’d keep us laughing with her funny ways and ornery remarks, and you could tell she loved being a part of what we were trying to do out there.

 

Aunt Belle was with us through good times and bad.  She was there that year we lost over fifty head of Holstein calves from our dairy heard to disease; she was there with us trying to save each one, staying up all night with them, laying their heads in our laps, forcing medicine down their throats, and crying and praying that we might save this one or that one against all odds.  She was there when we brought a couple of them into our house and laid them on a blanket on the kitchen floor to get them out of the weather and keep an around-the-clock vigil in hopes of saving them.  She was there when we lost nearly every one of them and had to bury one after the other out in the pasture.  She knew how we loved our animals and her heart went out to us.

 

Aunt Belle had a lot of funny one-liners and mannerisms that kept us in stitches.  She liked to refer to old people, including many that were considerably younger than her, as “that old fossil” or “that old so-and-so.”  Another favorite label was “outfit”—when she couldn’t think of someone’s name when talking about them with someone else, she’d just refer to them as “outfit” as in:  "Uh, tell outfit over there when I come by she had better have my sweet potatoes ready."  She called my kid sister “Little Britches” well into adulthood when Trish towered about a foot over her.  She had an ornery streak and liked to take out her false teeth and chase us with them.  To a little kid of eight or ten years old, hell hath no fury like a pair of false teeth about to take a hunk out of your backside.  She frequently scared the dickens out of us and then laughed hysterically about it.  It was just her way, and as each of us got into our teens, we came to really enjoy watching her torment the younger ones (and to be really grateful that we were finally no longer in the target audience).

 

She could say a few words and say more than other people said in paragraphs.  When my cousin Jeffrey got the bright idea of firing a BB-gun straight down into a metal dog bowl at his feet and was summarily rewarded by having the BB ricochet and lodge in the end of his chin, we rushed him—bawling his head off—to see Aunt Belle.  She looked him over for a second or two and then offered, in that long, Texas drawl of hers:  “Well, Stupid!”   She suffered no fools and wasn’t afraid to tell you what she thought—and she might even crack you up in the process.

 

One of Belle’s favorite things to do was fish in our pond.  It was just a little farm pond, but it wasn’t fished much, and she’d occasionally pull some pretty good looking fish out of it.  She’d go down to the pond on a Saturday and spend the whole day there, just fishing, smoking, and listening to Hank Williams sing on the eight-track in her car.  Whether she caught anything or not, for her, there was no better life, no other place she’d rather be than on the bank of that ruddy little farm pond in Oklahoma under a sunny blue sky with a line in the water and plenty of bait in the can.  She’d literally spend hours down there, and sometimes I’d go down with her.  Not many words were spoken but more was said than some say in a lifetime.

 

I could talk all day about my memories of Aunt Belle.  She was always good to me, and I will miss her dearly.  I know all of you here feel just the same.  She was a good soul, and now she has gone on to her reward.

 

Many of us today have lamented that it takes something like this to get the whole clan together, that our only real family reunions anymore tend to be funerals.  That's a shame, but there's a bright side.  Thursday, there was a family reunion in heaven.  Belle was the last of her generation, the last of the twelve kids in her family to pass on.  When she moved over to the other side, there was a great welcoming home.  I envision her mother and dad, my great-grandparents, meeting her at the pearly gates and leading her by the hand to the Henderson pavilion there in heaven.  There are hugs and kisses all around, and Coleman, and Mattie, and Claudia and her twin brother, my Grandpa Charley, and all the rest unite for the first time in decades.  John T. is there with Pauline and just as ornery as ever, and a tear runs down his cheek as he sees his sister face-to-face for the first time in years.  The family circle is once again unbroken.

 

I know my Uncle Charles is there, too—he and Aunt Belle had some legendary “arguments” over the years—and he wouldn’t miss her homecoming for the world.  No longer hobbled by a bum leg courtesy of Vietnam, his big six-four frame runs up to her and wraps his arms around her and picks her up off that golden street.  Charles was the first of his generation to move on.  They say there are no tears in heaven, but I’ll bet he’s been a bit lonely waiting on his big sister, and my dad, and my Uncle Kenneth to join him.  After a lifetime of waiting, he finally got to know his father, and he wants them to know him, too.  Someday they will. 

 

Do you ever wonder what people in heaven do all day?  Today is Saturday, and I know exactly where Aunt Belle is right now.  She’s not in that casket.  She’s perched on a pond bank somewhere in heaven, with a line in the water and a perfect sky over head.  She’s catching fish left and right—big bass, catfish, crappie—you name it, and she’s loving every minute of it.  She’s got an endless supply of bait and a fish basket as a big as a truck.  And instead of listening to the eight-track in her car, ol’ Hank is right there with her, he’s got a line in the water too, and he’s singing “Hey Good Lookin’”, “Move It On Over” and a dozen others of her favorites as they bask in the eternal bliss that awaits the good and the just.

 

So, this is no time to mourn and fret about our loss.  Our loss is heaven’s gain and Aunt Belle’s release.  It was her time, and she’s receiving her just rewards after having led a long and prosperous life.  Those of us she leaves behind can only hope to be so fortunate.

Watching the Dallas Cowboys self destruct this last season was painful for those of us who root for them.  I’ve been a Cowboys fan so long now I couldn’t change if I wanted to.  As pathetic as they’ve been at times, I’m no fair-weather fan.  That said, this year has been especially hard on me to remain a loyal fan for a number of reasons.

 

Number one is I still feel, as I always have, that Bill Parcells was a bad hire.  The best thing they could do is get rid of him.  I don’t subscribe to Parcells’ egocentric approach, his militaristic belief that you have to break people down to build them up.  What that leads to is being surrounded by yes men and sycophants and getting your ass handed to you by New Orleans on your home field late in the season.  I don’t think arm twisting and badgering people is what wins championships.  Basically, Parcells is a jerk, and real men don’t want to play for jerks.  I think he’s about a snide remark or two away from getting his clock cleaned by one of his players.  Here's hoping that Roy Williams is near his boiling point.

 

What we need is a young coach who earns the respect of his players and coaches by his worth ethic, his coaching decisions, and his game strategy, not one who demands it based on his vast experience in the past.  Parcells has the Cowboys where he has had every NFL team with which he has had any success whatsoever:  feeling lucky to have him around and willing to do almost anything to get him to honor his contract and not leave.  In other words, he has them exactly where he wants them.  And this brings me to my next point.

 

Number two, Jerry Jones is a bad owner.  I’ve always felt that way, and I probably always will.  Winning Super Bowls does not make for a great organization or a great owner because it’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.  Firing Tom Landry the way he did is practically an unpardonable sin to those of us who grew up watching the man on the sideline.  Landry exemplified class and deserved better than that—way better.  And bringing in Barry Switzer to replace Jimmy Johnson was just plain stupid—for the Cowboys and for Switzer.  Sure, the Cowboys needed a less egocentric coach than Johnson.  I understood the need for a change.  But Barry Switzer?  Someone who’d never coached in the NFL and who hadn’t coached in college for several years?  Madness, pure madness.  That was Jerry’s ego at work.  Ditto for bringing in Deion Sanders.  God, what a waste.  We could have afforded three or four good players, players who’d have been productive for years, for what we spent on Mr. Me.  Good teams don’t need “stars”; they need people who love the game and play it for its own sake.  Stardom for the team—true stardom—comes from that, not the other way around.  Ditto for his handling of Chan Gailey.  One of the true gentlemen of the game and one of the best coaches in the business got screwed over because Jerry couldn’t see that Aikman was either tanking games or had lost—really lost—his skills.  Aikman cost both Switzer and Gailey their jobs before Jerry finally pulled the plug on him.  And don’t get me started about the Parcells hiring.  Again, Jerry thinks he can buy a championship by going out and paying top dollar for a premium coach.  What you need, Jerry, is a young coach who’s hungry, who keeps his ego in the cellar, and who earns his players’ respect.  And knowing that Jerry will never figure this out, what the Cowboys need is a new owner.

 

What of TO, you ask?  TO is merely Jones’ latest foible—another case of his trying to buy a championship, the principles of winning be damned.  Of course he should never have been brought to the team.  He’s an underperforming, preening, self-centered, arrogant ass who deserves to have to slog along with a crappy team.  Come to think of it, I guess that means that he and the Cowboys kind of deserve each other.  Regardless, I’m a Cowboys fan, so I’d like nothing better than to see TO TOssed out the door.  No doubt Jerry gave him the type of deal that would make that a bad financial move for the team.  Like I said:  Jerry is a poor owner—a meddlesome, classless, foolish pretender who should never had been allowed into ranks of the NFL in the first place.

 

What does this team need?  To clean house.  Since I know Jones isn’t going anywhere, I’ll just say that both Parcells and TO need to be shown the door.  Since we have virtually no chance of getting Sean Payton back, and since he, like lots of Parcells’ former assistants, despises the man and all that he stands for, he’d never come back as long as Parcells is around, anyway, I’d say let’s find a young assistant somewhere in the NFL ranks, someone who’s been very successful with his side of the ball and who has been around awhile.  Let’s give him free reign and keep the damned owner out of the coaching box.  And let’s not try to buy any more championships.  Let’s get young, hungry, selfless players who dress out on Sunday because they love the game—true warriors who leave it all on the field.  We don’t need any more money grubbers or media hounds.  Let Parcells posture himself right out the door, then get someone to replace him who keeps the team’s interests ahead of his own and who wakes up everyday feeling lucky to coach the game he loves.

 

Score:  ωωωωω   (Four out of five omegas)

 

Well, I went to see this one as I said I would.  My impressions?  This is the best Rocky movie since the original.  And it may be Stallone’s best acting ever.  He captured the essence of Brando that Roger Ebert wrote about after the first movie took home the Oscar for Best Picture in 1976.  It’s well worth your money to go see it.

 

Ten reasons I loved the movie:

 

1. Stallone’s growth as a writer is in evidence everywhere.  He has finally come into his own in this one.  He knew there was no room for mistakes, and he doesn’t make any (at least not any big ones).  I particularly liked that Mason Dixon isn’t a two-dimensional cardboard-cutout villain.  He’s no Clubber Lang.  He’s a real person and has likable qualities.  That’s something no other Rocky villain has had.  He may be young and arrogant, but he’s got goodness inside him, and Stallone deftly brings that out.

 

2. There are two or three long dialog scenes in the movie.  Normally, this is where a Rocky movie might falter, but, surprisingly, Stallone pulls these off with panache.  Take, for example, the scene where his son lays into him about how embarrassing it will be for him if Rocky gets back in the ring.  He seems to make a good case and seems to have a legitimate complaint.  Then Rocky responds and brings his misguided concern into perspective the way that only a person who’s lived a little could.  He speaks with the wisdom of a man who has seen a battle or two, and Stallone’s skill as a writer is what creates this completely believable and instantly memorable exchange.  It’s a highpoint of the film.  Another is the scene where Rocky appears before the boxing commission.  That scene is also handled exactly as it should have been.  Dramatic tension gradually builds until you’re virtually overcome with emotion, outrage that makes you as the viewer want to stand up and demand the protagonist do something.  Then finally comes the payoff.  You don’t quite have Dustin Hoffman shouting, “No, you’re out of order!” but it’s pretty darn close.

 

3. Stallone wisely foregoes the body paint and fake bronzing of the earlier movies.  He no longer looks like a cartoon character, a caricature of himself.  There’s an apocryphal story about Sly’s dad criticizing his physique after the first movie became so successful, and Stallone responding to it by turning himself into a WWF-style monster by the second and third movies.  I don’t know whether the story is true or not, but the bronzing and ridiculous bodybuilder look are thankfully gone.  Rocky looks like a puncher from Philly again, albeit one who’s in darn good shape to be 60 years old.  Once he’s in the ring, he could easily pass for 35—easily.  I don’t know what fitness regimen Stallone is on, but he ought to bottle and sell it.

 

4. The decision to have Adrian already dead at the start of the movie was a good one.  Stallone could have had her in the movie again for the whole ride or even had her die midway through.  I’m glad he didn’t do either of those.  Instead, we see him dealing with her loss right off the bat amid trying to connect with this son.  This works on many levels and shows Stallone has grown wiser as his characters have aged.

 

5. The casting is strong in this one.  From the major characters down to the minor ones, I can’t think of any weak performances.  For me, the two unsung heroes are Milo Ventimiglia (Rocky Jr.) and Irish actress Geraldine Hughes (Little Marie).  Both turn in performances they can be proud of and that make good scenes great.  I am still astounded at how authentic Geraldine’s South Philly accent sounds.  My jaw dropped when I saw an interview with her and she spoke in that beautiful Irish brogue of her native land.

 

6. Rocky’s one-liners are still endearing.  They don’t seem forced and still get a chuckle or two every time.  I wondered how they’d come off—whether they’d seem contrived or forced—but Stallone, again, handles this part of the creative process quite deftly.

 

7. The fight scene is as well-choreographed as any of the other films precisely because it does not appear to be choreographed.  Stallone was smart to use a real boxer in the role of the other fighter.  There are times they just appear to be going at each other while the cameras roll.  Boxing fans who watched Ali, Frazier, Foreman, and Holmes will wistfully recall a time when heavyweight fights used to be that way.  Sometimes they’d simply go toe-to-toe and wail on each other, mano a mano, for a bit.  The fight scene effectively captures that vibe.

 

8. The camera work in this one is very good.  Some poignant dissolves punctuate the film at just the right points, and the film makes good use of raw, very basic lighting in many places.  You get the sense of an indie film almost.  There’s some handheld camera footage, and the scenes around South Philly bring an honesty, a truthfulness not seen since the original film or perhaps the second one.  It’s almost as though Philadelphia becomes a character of its own in the story.  Stallone wisely seasons the movie with the Philly scenery and landmarks in just the right proportions—the movie isn’t a valentine to the city, but it is used to effectively tell the story and give the movie character.

 

9. I was surprised that I still liked the music.  Stallone opens the movie with the same doo-wap tune that opens the first movie (if memory serves, his brother wrote it).  Like most all of the music in the film, the tune works whether you remember the other movies or not.  Yes, an updated version of the famous Bill Conti theme is back, and, yes, it still makes you want to jump out of your chair and run up those steps.

 

10. I suppose the biggest compliment I could pay is the fact that my fourteen year-old son, who wasn’t even born when the last Rocky movie played and knew nothing of the previous flicks, reacted the same way I did when I saw the original in 1976.  He was ready to take on the world.  I remember feeling that way for a couple weeks back in 1976.  You throw on the sweats, you shadowbox, you run around looking like an idiot.  It is the definition of being inspired by something.  The underdog theme, the notion that the power to take on the world rests in your own two hands, that pushing yourself to your limits reveals inner courage and strength you never knew you had—I remember it well.  Corny as it may sound, teenage boys love that kind of stuff, and my son loved this movie.  I didn’t know until we were walking out of the theater that he was completely unaware of Rocky before this movie.  The guy in front of us overheard him say that and was as astonished as I was:  “You never heard of Rocky before?” he asked incredulously.  He couldn’t believe it, either.  But, despite my son's shocking ignorance of American pop culture, the real litmus test here is that he absolutely loved the movie.  He was on the edge of his seat during the boxing scene, and he knew he’d been on one of the most memorable rides of his young life when the credits rolled. 

 

So, young and old, newbie and Rocky fan alike thoroughly enjoyed this final installment in one of the most endearing stories ever to grace the silver screen.  More than the typical Rocky flick guilty pleasure, Rocky Balboa is actually a great movie.  It's a timeless story about heart, about courage, and about being true to yourself that knows no demographic or age boundaries.  My son and I liked it so much that we went back to see it multiple times (something I almost never do), and even went out and rented/bought all the old Rocky/Rambo movies and had a regular Sylvester Stallone film festival over Christmas.  This film stands right up there with the best work Stallone has ever done.  Given that he didn’t direct the first movie, I’d say this one is definitely his best work as a director.  It is also likely his best work as an actor.  And the writing is on par with the first film and pays a respectable homage to it.

 

Great way to retire the old puncher, Sly.  You were right to make this film.  I can’t wait for the final installment of Rambo.  You’ll have different challenges with that one than you did here, but if you handle them with half the finesse, skill, and taste you handled Rocky Balboa, I’ll be there in line on opening night.