Happy New Year

Here we are, on the verge of something called 2024.

I'm not sure what to think. But here goes.

For a person like myself who was born in 1951, the very concept of 2024 seems, well, otherworldly. Maybe even unattainable. It seems like the very date could be someone else's vision of science fiction, and maybe from the perspective of an earlier decade, that could have been true. Perhaps in the way George Orwell saw 1984 when he published his dystopian novel in 1949. But here we are, about to live in our rapidly advancing future, coming at us minute by minute.

So how am I to negotiate my way through this future fog?

Good question. 

I want to say I'll take it as it comes, because that seems to be the most logical approach to me. It's the way I've always done things, I think. I mean, life comes zipping at you from different angles like a variety of pitches from a Cy Young winner. A year ago at this time, I was getting ready to have my second gall bladder surgery, even though I had the gall bladder removed years earlier (there was a remnant that still produced gall stones). Who saw that coming?

One thing I'll do is still go to the gym, arriving as I do every morning at 5 a.m., as I have for the past eight years. It's not so much an annual resolution to lose weight (well, it kinda is) as it is a way for me to keep my overall health in check. So far, all my wellness exams to date have pleased my doctor.

But there are no guarantees, of course. Future fog.

Having said that, I guess the best that we can do is try to prepare ourselves the best that we can. That's why my wife and myself have all our current vaccinations: Covid, flu, RSV – we took all of our shots in the same day. In the same arm. And, as it turns out, we are part of the mere 18 percent (as of Dec. 9) that has taken the Covid update. So is it any surprise Covid is once again on the rise?

I'm seeing more and more people voluntarily wearing masks again, and I think Kim and I will do the same on our next grocery store visit. We have attended several seasonal social functions, but went with the knowledge that the crud is still out there, so we try to limit our exposure. We still try to observe the 6-foot proximity rule, too, when we can. It only makes sense.

And, of course, 2024 is an election year. We need to prepare ourselves for that, too. Arm ourselves with actual knowledge and not conspiracy theories. Decide which candidate prefers democracy or fascism (and learn the difference) and then the nation can move forward.

Ready or not, here it comes: 2024.

Happy New Year.

 

A commercial Christmas

You've probably seen these two Christmas commercials already, but that's not my point. I mean, how many times have you seen "It's a Wonderful Life" but you still can't wait to see it again?

Point made. So there's this:

Chevrolet came out with this emotional heart-tugger back in November, and it depicts an elderly woman – a grandmother – who is suffering from  Alzheimer's. She's lost. She's confused. She doesn't even recognize her husband.

But then her granddaughter takes her out for a ride in their classic 1972 Chevy Suburban and somehow the experience rekindles a flame, a memory, in the old woman. John Denver's "Sunshine on My Shoulders" drifts from the eight track.

Flashes of her memories return when she sees the house in which she was born, the high school where she met her husband, the kiss they shared at the drive-in theater.

The whole sequence describes something called Reminiscence Therapy that can be used to help Alzheimer patients to experience moments of clarity. The old lady returns from the drive down memory lane and soon shares another tender moment with her husband, whom she now recognizes. What a Christmas present. (See here. Scroll to the middle of the text for the actual commercial).

The ad is amazing. Chevy doesn't brazenly throw its brand or its logo around and yet it tells a heartwarming story. The Suburban subconsciously tells you who's paying for the ad while it's bringing you to tears. Brilliant.

The version of the commercial I linked in this post is over five minutes long and that's probably not the one you've seen on TV. You probably saw the 60-second version, which has several gaps in the story here and there. This commercial only really works in the long version.

Amazon came out with its beauty at about the same time as Chevy. This one shows three elderly women, clearly lifelong friends, wistfully watching children sledding down a hill in the same way they once did as kids.

Then one of them gets an idea. She places an order to Amazon – the only time in the spot where the company surfaces – and the next day the women are seen gleefully sledding down the hill. In one brief satisfying moment, they are transported back to their childhood.

All of this is done to the tune of The Beatles "In My Life," only the song is done as a beautiful slow-tempo piano solo. I could listen to it all day. It's a "wow" moment for me. (See here).

Like the Chevy commercial, this ad also has multiple versions. The 30-second spot erases the moment the women become young again. It might as well be a different commercial. The longer version, meanwhile, tells a story that moistens your eyes.

Both commercials, I think, are aimed at an older audience. Probably us Baby Boomers, who are now growing nostalgic with our own touches of memory loss. The songs are a clue.

I normally don't get keyed up over Christmas commercials, but these two grabbed me by the throat.

It's Christmas commercialism at its best.

Merry Christmas.

Ralph Brinkley

Shortly after I moved to Lexington in 1976 to become the new wet-behind-the-ears sports writer for The Dispatch, I was assigned to do a story on Welcome's Ralph Brinkley.

It seems that Ralph was something of a local legend even by then, winning modified stock car races at Winston-Salem's unique Bowman Gray Stadium at a prodigious rate. In 1976, at the age of 37, he'd won the third of what would be an incredible eight championships on the unbanked quarter-mile asphalt track. Before his career was over in 1998, he'd won 64 feature races there (a record that lasted seven years).

Like I said, local legend.

For my part, I knew next to nothing about stock car racing. I was a 25-year-old Yankee from Pennsylvania who grew up on baseball, football and basketball and regarded almost everything else as an unworthy diversion.

And so when I went out to Ralph's automotive machine shop in Lexington for my first ever interview with him, I told him all that. He smiled. He said he'd learn me.

Did he ever.

Ralph died on Wednesday at the age of 84, and while I always thought we had a terrific professional relationship between athlete and journalist, I also felt that he was a friend. He just made most people feel that way, I guess.

Ralph Brinkley

 Over the years, Ralph would explain to me some of the nuances of auto racing to help give my motorsports stories some depth. I began to appreciate the sport a bit more because of his generous insights.

A few years later, I was assigned to do an in-depth piece on Ralph. That meant riding with him and his crew to Bowman Gray Stadium, watching them set up the car (a modified Corvair), watching him race from the pit, then from the stands and then talking with his fans. It was an incredible experience. We didn't get back home until midnight.

What amazed me more than anything is that Ralph was as successful as he was in spite of being blind in one eye. When he was nine years old, he lost his right eye to cancer. Logically, you'd think that depth perception would be an issue for a one-eyed stock car driver, but that never seemed to be the case for Ralph, who would later get a private pilot's license to fly his cherished Piper Cherokee.

There's a great story out there that highlights both Ralph's personality and life perspective. He was once asked by fan Mark Benson if having one eye hindered his racing. "No," replied Ralph. "I just close my good eye and look out of my glass eye."

When Kim and I purchased a classic 1966 289 Mustang convertible, we needed to have the engine overhauled. The guy that was working on the car for us subbed it out to Ralph Brinkley & Sons Automotive. "Oh," I said. "I know Ralph. Thanks for that."

When I ran into Ralph a bit later, he told me several of the pistons had hairline fractures in them. He replaced them with durable racing pistons. The engine was never a problem after that.

He later went on to build his own airplane, an RV 7-A that he put together from a kit in the Lexington airport hanger. 

He also became a certified advanced scuba diver. Never saw that one coming, but I think the endeavor established him as something of a multifaceted renaissance man. Something more than a stock car driver anyway.

But the best part of all came in 2012. I was the secretary on the board of directors for the Davidson County Sports Hall of Fame back then. I added Ralph's name to the list of candidates for that year and we, the board, unanimously voted him in without debate.

When it came time for the induction ceremony, Ralph was as grateful and as appreciative as any inductee we ever had. He brought his family. He brought his pit crew. He brought a large number of his fans. He even brought his race car, which he had on display outside of the building that evening.

During the ceremony, Ralph easily spoke to the audience without notes. He was a natural speaker who was comfortable within his own skin. He regaled us with racing tales, with humor and with sincere emotion. By the time he was done, he had us in tears, including himself. Tears of happiness, mostly. "Who would think a person with one eye could ever be inducted into a sports hall of fame?" he asked, seemingly incredulous about his own induction. 

I will always remember his induction ceremony as one of the best we ever had, if for no other reason than the sheer joy he exuded that night. I'd never seen anything quite like it before.

The other day, Kim called me from work. She'd seen a story about Ralph's passing and she wanted to let me know. I felt a tinge of sadness, of course, but it also occurred to me that Ralph had lived his life to its absolute fullest. And so I smiled.

What more could a man ask?

 

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A new fence

Like most people who face something that requires throwing lots of money at it, we kept putting off replacing the old, flimsy, worn down lattice fence that defined the property line in our backyard with that of our next door neighbor.

Kim and I had talked about doing this for years, and even had an idea of what kind of fence we wanted to put up.

Just not now.

But "now" had finally arrived.

So we made the leap. Because we live in the Park Place Historic Neighborhood, I had to check in with the City of Lexington to obtain a certificate of appropriateness. This is now a simple and logical process that no longer requires historic district board approval. It's simply an administrative matter and the project was almost immediately approved by Trey Cleaton of Business and Community Development. Easy peasy.

We also hired A&K Quality Fencing out of High Point to do the work. This was a great decision because the company was also doing the fencing for our neighbor. It was kind of a two-for-one project.

At any rate, here is a brief photo essay of our new fence:

1). This is what our old lattice fence looked like. The posts were never grounded in concrete and the fence itself was bowed and coming apart in several places. Encroaching ivy creeped through the fence and some animals, like ground hogs, were able to burrow through and raid our vegetable garden. It had to go.

2). The old fence is down. There's a property line in there somewhere. The old fence post holes give us a clue, but at this point, it feels really odd to share a free-range yard with my neighbor.

3). The new fence is up. Technically, it's a pine wood dog ear fence four feet high with a lattice header that adds another foot to the total height. It's tall enough that I can peer over the top with my hat and eyeballs like Wilson in Home Improvement. Sort of. It is regarded as a privacy fence, but the lattice header makes it more of a semi-private construction. We hope it keeps the ivy out and that the ground hogs don't know how to engineer tunnels under neath it (wishful thinking, methinks). But the fence is sturdy, with the posts solidly anchored by concrete into the ground. We are told this fence is good for at least 25 years. Great. I'll be 97 when we need a new one.

4). Here is the view from the other end.

5). Here is a view of the total fence line, minus a couple of yards or so. The decision now is to decide whether or not to paint it, stain it or let it age naturally. If we stain it, we'll probably go with white. But I like the idea of letting it weather with age. I think aging might make the fence appear to be a more natural part of the landscape.

Disregard the arbor that is in serious disrepair. That'll be our next project.

In the meantime, many thanks to Nico Barrientos and the crew from A&K Quality Fencing. They did superior work (See here).