Week Four in Las Vegas

My fourth week in Las Vegas started with my second visit to the United Church of Christ in Henderson. This time, the crowd seemed smaller and less enthusiastic. The pastor’s sermon was longer and I noticed several people, me included, nodding off at times. It was sunny, but cool day and it just seemed like a lazy Sunday.

That afternoon, I spent some time in Starbucks researching shows that I might go to and take Pam to when she visits the third week in March. Because it is spring break season, a lot of the name entertainers’ shows that week are already sold out or close to it. There is a same day discount ticket service and we may take our chances with that.

That evening, I decided to watch the Academy Awards ceremony and part of the red carpet lead in. I had seen over half of the best picture nominees, so I was curious to see how they would do: “The Irishman”; “1917”; “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”; “Marriage Story” and “Little Women.”

Later that evening, I started watching a Netflix series called “Messiah” and it is an interesting concept. The series opens in an embattled part of Damascus, Syria, that is being heavily shelled during the current civil war. As residents try to stay under cover to avoid the bombing, a mysterious man appears and begins to preach in a square as the bombs and gunfire surrounds him. There is a lull in the shelling and hundreds of people gather to listen to him.

The man talks about peace and love and has an engaging quality about him. He has long, dark hair, a beard and a compassionate yet serious looking gaze. He strongly resembles the paintings and drawings of Jesus we are used to seeing and his message sounds much the same. Eventually, he leads a group out of the city and across the desert to the border of Israel where they seek asylum. I’ll stop here and recommend you check it out on Netflix.

That night, I heard some rain and looked outside to see the patio was wet. I was the first rain I had seen in over two weeks in Vegas. This area only averages about 10 inches of rain per year compared to the 40 inches or so that I am used to in Ohio. I’ve noticed that the definition of partly cloudy here means a few clouds in the sky, not what we think of in Ohio.

Monday, I found an interesting coffee shop in downtown Henderson called Public Works. It has an interesting vibe and free refills of coffee. Plus, they play a very eclectic mix of music including jazz, Motown, folk and so on. I have been there a couple of times and plan to go more.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I attended my second week of classes at The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV. Two are related to history, one about the American West and the other about the history of Nevada. The third class is about comedy in film and it is my favorite. This week we saw “It Happened One Night” starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

After the film, the instructor expressed surprise that the class didn’t laugh as much at this film as we did the week before at Mae West’s “She Done Him Wrong.” My opinion is the Mae West’s film was funnier because it had a lot of zinger double-meaning comments that were bound to provoke more laughter among an older crowd.

After class, I took a drive around the UNLV campus that is located a couple of miles away from the famed Las Vegas Boulevard, a.k.a., “The Strip.”  The campus is very compact and surrounded by an urban neighborhood full of all kinds of restaurants, shops and other businesses. It reminds me of the area around the University of Akron.

I saw an In-Out Burger restaurant and decided to make my first visit to this West Coast staple. I was not disappointed by the delicious double hamburger and fries. I now see why this chain is so popular.

On Thursday, I drove an hour north through the Lake Mead Recreation area to The Valley of Fire state park. It is a stunning area with the road lined with red sandstone formations. Driving up the the highest area in the park, I could see all kinds of different colors and layers in the hills and rock formations. It was well worth the trip.

On Friday, I got a little taste of home when I found a Panera Bread restaurant not too far from where I am staying. I enjoy the soup there and also free coffee refills.

More to come next week.

Week Three in Las Vegas

I began my third week in Las Vegas by attending church at the United Church of Christ Community Church in Henderson. It’s not a large church and it seats about 150 and was about half full for the service. The pastor came and greeted me right after I sat down and I learned he grew up in southeast Ohio and his brother had played football and graduated from Mount Union University in Alliance. So, he was familiar with Northeast Ohio.

It was a warm, sunny day so I went back to my casita and sat in the sun on the patio. I worked a little on an outline for my next writing project.

The Super Bowl was due to start at about 3:30 local time and the game was actually pretty good. I really didn’t have a favorite, although the Chiefs are from the Midwest and I was thrilled by their fourth quarter comeback to win the game. Even more thrilling was the halftime show featuring (or should I say “ft.”?) Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. These two Latina women are dynamic and accomplished performers who put on a memorable halftime show.  Also, they were a lot more interesting for me to look at than last year’s performers, Maroon 5.

Than evening, the wind really started to howl and the temperature dropped about 40 degrees overnight. The noise from the wind and the change in weather made it hard to sleep.

The next morning, I went to the Black Mountain Recreation Center and rode the Exercycle. I decided to try the Public Works coffee shop in downtown Henderson for lunch, but they had sold out all of their sandwiches when I arrived in early afternoon. So, I tried a Cruffin, a croissant rolled into a muffin shape and baked. It was actually pretty good.

On Tuesday, I woke up a little early and read the Akron Beacon Journal online. Then I headed toward downtown Las Vegas for my first day of classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV. I arrived a little more than an hour before my first class and found the lounge area where there was free coffee or tea and some snacks. I was able to sign up for a guest account on my computer to use UNLV’s Wi-Fi and I talked with several other students

My first class was “The American West” and I was amazed that the classroom, which had about 100 seats, was full. The instructor said he was a retired railroad manager. Most of the class consisted of two videos from a series called “Great Courses.” Actually, they were pretty good videos and the instructor summarized the main points after each.

During the lunch period, I went to an orientation session about OLLI and heard about the origins of the program. They showed a video with brief classroom scenes of students waving from various campuses that offered OLLI. There was even a brief shot of OLLI students at UTEP.

The second class was Nevada History and it was a little more engaging. The instructor concentrated on the geography and environment of the state while making the point that Nevada’s growth and development was a product of its natural resources. He finished about 20 minutes early and I was pretty tired after about three hours of class time. One good thing, he provided free maps of Nevada as a reference tool for the class.

On the way home, I stopped at Von’s supermarket and bought a large bottle of Evan Williams bourbon. It was too cool to sit on the patio, so I watched some news until the Kentucky-Mississippi State game came on at 6PM. I cooked a frozen pizza for dinner and watched the last few episodes of “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix.

On Wednesday, I only had one OLLI class but I think it will be my favorite and it is called “Comedy: What’s the Point?” Each week we will watch a comedy feature film and then discuss the film in the remaining time. The instructor is a graduate of the University of Southern California film school with a masters from Indiana University. I had a very nice conversation with her in the OLLI lounge before the class started and I think this course will be a lot of fun.

Pam will be visiting me in Vegas the third week of March and I’m looking forward to taking her to class to watch “The Producers” that week. We have seen the film numerous times and it cracks both of us up every time. What can you say about a film that has a stage musical song called “Springtime for Hitler” with young women dancers in SS uniform jackets and dance shorts performing a routine like the June Taylor dancers who were regulars on Jackie Gleason’s TV variety show in the 50s and 60s.

In the first class, we watched Mae West in “She Done Him Wrong” from 1930 and it was so much fun. The film featured her at her man-baiting best and was full of double entendres that the class laughed at heartily. After the film, we discussed the beginnings of the Motion Picture Code that was established in 1930 and how this film might have been fared with the code committee.

The weather the next three days was sunny and warmer and I decided to put some miles on the rental car and explore the area around Las Vegas. On Thursday, I drove about an hour west of the Las Vegas area to Red Rock Canyon Park. I took the 13-mile Scenic Drive loop and was not disappointed. The colors of the layers of rock making up the hills surrounding the canyon are spectacular. The red color of layers is caused by iron that leached into the limestone as the whole area emerged from the the bottom of the sea 180 million years ago.

The speed limit on the one-way road was 35 mph, but I went a lot slower than that to take in the scenery. Fortunately, the road was wide enough that mostly younger drivers wanting to go faster could pass me. Every two or three miles, there was a small parking area where I could get out and take pictures. I highly recommend this drive when you visit Las Vegas.

About an hour after I left Red Rock, I was driving up towards the summit of Mt. Charleston, a peak of over 11,000 feet about an hour northwest of Vegas. As I passed the 6,000-foot level, the ground was covered with snow and the road ended at about 7,600 feet. The Mt. Charleston lodge has a couple of dozen cabins for rent and a large restaurant at this spot. I decided to have lunch and was able to look at the mountainous terrain out the large windows on three sides of the restaurant. By the way, my lunch of Quiche Lorraine and broccoli cheese soup was very good.

After lunch, I drove back down the mountain and went north on U.S. 95 for about a half hour. The land was very much a desert with mountains off in the distance on all sides.

The next day, I worked out fairly early in the morning (for me!) at about 9:30AM and then decided to explore the area south of Las Vegas. I took U.S. 95 to Searchlight, NV, and then went east towards Cottonwood Cove, a small village on the Colorado River downstream from Hoover Dam. On the way, there was a National Park Service toll both, but it was not staffed and a row of orange cones directed drivers around it. The desert landscape was full of Yucca plants that were beginning to sprout yellow blossoms, a sign that spring was coming to the desert.

When I arrived at the town, it was virtually deserted even though there were dozens of boats docked at the marina. I thought about stopping at the snack bar, but it was only the size of a small trailer.

There were dozens of house trailers and manufactured homes lining the only road in and out of town, but most of these looked unoccupied. Later, my landlord Ernie explained that this is off season and that area would be packed during the summer. After I reached Searchlight, I headed east for about 30 miles and picked up U.S. 93 heading back north towards Henderson, where I am staying.

As I approached Hoover Dam, the late afternoon sun provided wonderful shadows and colors on the hills. The last part of the drive, I was driving directly into the sun and that made the final few miles of the drive somewhat difficult. But I arrived home in time to relax on the patio with a couple of bourbons before dinner.

After a couple of days of sightseeing, I decided to take it easy on Saturday. Las Vegas is on Pacific Time and I am adjusting to the early start time for some sporting events. So, I watched Kentucky play Tennessee at 10AM. That afternoon, I spent a lot of time on the patio getting some sun and working on a couple of projects. In my three weeks here, it has been sunny just about every day and the low humidity is helping my allergies and breathing.

I will have more next week. See you then.

Week Two in Las Vegas

My second week in the Las Vegas area began with a very laid back Sunday. I thought about checking out a local church, but I was very tired when I woke up and didn’t do much. One shortcoming about the casita I am renting is that all of the lighting is overhead in recessed fixtures. When I do desk work, I like to use a table lamp and turn off overhead lights to reduce glare on the computer screen.

So, late Sunday morning I went to Wal-Mart and found a nifty LED desk lamp for about $20. I plan to take it home with me, so I wanted something that would fit in my suitcase. I put on the table in the kitchen where I do some work and also use it to provide some base light while watching TV in the evening.

The afternoon was sunny and not too cool, so I went on the patio and proofed chapters in my book. I watch a little of Brian’s Akron Aviators play in Syracuse. Just as I turned on my computer, my phone had a bulletin about Kobe Bryant and his daughter dying in a helicopter crash along with 7 others. Brian texted me about that moments later.

For the rest of the day and evening, there were constant reports about the crash and mourning by fans. That evening, I wanted to watched Netflix to get away from the coverage, but the internet connection was bad, so I had to settle for cable fare that wasn’t too good.

Monday, I decided to go to Death Valley National Park, about a 2.5-hour drive northwest of Las Vegas. I didn’t leave until after 9AM to avoid the morning rush through the city. I drove for an hour and stopped at a convenience store in Pahrump, NV. Leaving that town, I missed the turn to go to the park. I drove about 20 miles before realizing that I needed to turn around and go back to Pahrump and make the turn. I took almost another half hour to reach the park Visitor Center. I used the National Park pass I bought last year to get a pass for Death Valley National Park.

The visit was well worth the drive. The valley floor is very flat and dotted with large white patches of salt interspersed with various plants. I visited two sites, the Artists’ Circle and Badwater Basin.

The Artists’ circle is a drive of about 13 miles along a one-way, one-lane road that takes you up into the hills on the east side of the valley. The rock formations and layers of colors are spectacular. The road twists, dips and turns between the formations and at times there were only a few feet of space between the rocky cliffs and the side of my car. It was almost like a slow-motion amusement park ride because the speed limit was 10 or 15 miles per hour in some places.

My next stop was Badwater Basin, the most crowded area of the park that I saw. Here a young couple took my picture as I posed near the sign that says this point is more than 280 feet below sea level. I then walked about a quarter mile out on the hardened salt out towards the middle of the valley. The salt flat extended hundreds of yards further out. The air was very dry and the temperature was 76 degrees and my lungs felt great. I have been battling asthma for years and the higher concentration of oxygen and dry desert air really felt great.

After leaving Badwater, it took nearly an hour to drive out of the park. But, I didn’t mind at all. It was warm enough to open the car windows and marvel at the scenery while driving on the east side of the valley. The drive back to Vegas also was scenic as the setting sun provided different hues to the Red Rock Mountains as I approached the city from the west.

When I arrived in central Las Vegas at rush hour, I missed my exit and got off the freeway in the heart of the Strip. I saw a couple of the large hotel/casinos and the new stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders. The outside is covered with dark tinted glass and it looks like a giant space ship. Fortunately, the traffic wasn’t terrible and my phone’s GPS guided me back to the casita. I slept well that night.

The next day, I went to a city recreation center called Black Mountain and signed up to use the facility through Silver Sneakers. It has a small, but very well-equipped fitness room with loads of machines. I had just eaten lunch so I waited for the next day to work out.

It was cloudy and cool, so I decided to drive to the UNLV campus to find the location of my classes in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute program. The area is on the very southern edge of the campus and looks like it might have been an elementary school at one time. There is a large parking lot and about a half dozen one-story tan stucco buildings with the classroom doors opening outside.

I am taking three classes, “American West: History, Myth and Legacy”; “Nevada History” and “Comedy: What’s the Point?” I am looking forward to the classes and meeting my fellow students. Up to this point, I have been fairly isolated and I am looking forward to some interaction.

After I drove around the campus area a bit, I headed back to Henderson. I visited the campus of Nevada State College outside Henderson. My Airbnb host Lori is taking graduate courses in Speech and Hearing Therapy there. The campus has about a half dozen buildings and looks brand new.

Wednesday, I decided to try out the Black Mountain Recreation Center. Silver Sneakers participants are permitted to use a workout room off the main lobby. The machines were a different brand than I was used to, but I was able figure things out and I had a pretty decent workout. I had a bit of a crisis when I went to leave my casita, the electronic door lock didn’t work. I rang the doorbell on the main house and Ernie, my landlord’s husband, came out after a couple of minutes. After a couple of attempts, he determined that the batteries in the lock were dead and replaced them. So, I went on to my workout.

After my workout, I showered and went to lunch at the nearby Starbucks. It was located on the corner of a busy shopping area and I was surprised how large it was. I got there at the end of lunch hour and the place was extremely busy. Normally, I don’t have any problems with noise and motion as customers come and go.

But, there was one guy 40-ish and dressed in shorts, a white t-shirt and flip-flops who sat near me. He was on the phone constantly the whole time I was there, sometimes using a louder than normal voice. To make things worse, he would get up out of his seat and pace up and down the aisle while talking.

I’m okay with short phone conversations in public places as long as there is some consideration for others nearby. But, this guy was out of line.

The next day, I decided to go to see “1917” because it is getting good reviews and is up for several Oscars. Some years, I’ve only seen one or two of the best picture nominees, but I’ve seen several of them this year, so I’ll be more interested to watch the TV show.

This film blew me away. It is shot in such a unique manner totally with a single camera and the scenes are put together to make the story somewhat continuous except for one fade to black late in the film. It’s an amazing accomplishment to see long tracking shots following the main characters through a maze of trenches. The costumes, set design and effects give the viewer the true horror of World War One. It’s pretty amazing.

On Friday, I decided to go on another road trip. This time I drove two hours north of Las Vegas to explore the town of St. George, Utah. The drive up on I-15 was spectacular, especially the 15 miles or so where the road ran parallel to the Virgin River. There were twists and turns among the rock formations that were fun to drive.

St. George is nestled against a range of red hills that overlook the center of town. It had some very nice neighborhoods and a stunning roadway and bike trail up on the red hillside overlooking the city. There is a large, white Mormon temple near the center of town and this city is said to have been the summer home of Joseph Smith.

After lunch and an hour or so of sightseeing, I headed back to Vegas. I hadn’t noticed it on the drive up, but on the last 20 miles of highway entering Vegas, I noticed a lot of trash by the side of the highway and a lot of it had been blown into the desert hundreds of yards from the road. It was disgusting and put a damper on the otherwise good scenery I had seen that day.

Also, on the way to St. George that morning, I was driving east on I-515 before turning north toward Utah. Central Las Vegas is located in a valley and even though the skies were bright and sunny, there was a layer of brown haze over the center of the city. Obviously, the middle of the city has an air pollution issue, but I am staying far enough out of town to avoid that.

The week ended with another workout at the city rec center. This is one advantage this area has over El Paso, where I couldn’t find a place I really wanted to go to keep up with my weight training.

I’ll have more next week.

Viva Las Vegas-The Second Great Adventure

This is the first of my planned weekly blogs about my second winter sabbatical taking place in Henderson, NV, a suburb of Las Vegas. I am staying at a casita that I booked through Airbnb in this suburban community of about 200,000 that is located about a dozen miles from the center of Las Vegas. I researched a couple of other locations in the Southwest, specifically the Phoenix and Tucson areas, but I decided on the Las Vegas area because of the availability of reasonably priced rentals through Airbnb.

My home for the next nine weeks is located on a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood of primarily single story ranch houses with Adobe architecture. Nearly all of the houses have red clay tile roofs and beige stucco exteriors. There are several major shopping areas within a 5-10- minute drive of my home.

Another reason I picked this area is the availability of non-credit courses for seniors at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. This is the same program that provided the classes I took last winter at The University of Texas El Paso. I will be starting my classes at UNLV the week of Feb. 3 and I am really looking forward to going back to college again.

Once I decided on the Las Vegas area and located this casita, I had to make some decisions about how to get here. My initial plan was to drive out west, just like I did last year when visiting El Paso. However, Las Vegas is nearly 2,200 miles from Stow, Ohio, and that would mean about four days on the road.

My son Brian agreed to drive out west with me and that was my intention until about three weeks before the journey. We planned to leave on Monday, January 20 and arrive in Las Vegas on the 23^rd. The following day, I would take Brian to the airport so he could fly back home to Ohio.

However, about a week before Christmas, I received a phone call from a former associate who had worked at Kent State University’s TV Center. Sandy Halem and I had worked on numerous video productions and membership drives together for WNEO/WEAO channels 45/49 in the late 1970s. She had been contacted by a producer from Rubicon Productions in Baltimore who was hired by 45/49 to produce a history of the public television stations.

Sandy was a producer at KSU while I was a producer at The University of Akron and we developed an instant rapport. She gave my phone number to Drew Perkins the producer of the program. His crew planned to be in northeast Ohio on January 20, and we agreed to tape an interview on the morning of January 20 and Brian and I would leave for Las Vegas immediately afterward.

However, the station offices were closed on Martin Luther King Junior’s birthday holiday. So, the interview was postponed until the morning of January 21. Meanwhile, Pam and I started to discuss whether it might be better for me to fly out to Las Vegas and rent a car for the duration of the sabbatical. I had lunch with my public TV colleague Sandy and she told me she and her husband had been going to Tucson, Arizona, during February and March for several years and after driving once, decided it was better to fly and rent a car.

After talking with her, I began to crunch the numbers and decided the cost of three nights of hotels, gas, meals and wear and tear on my car each way would nearly be equal to renting a car once here and buying a round-trip airline ticket.

Also, since the interview had been pushed back by the MLK holiday, I would still have a couple of days to prepare for the journey after the interview.

The morning of the interview, I met Trina Cutter, 45/49's general manager in the green room for about 10 minutes and we discussed the history of the stations. We discussed how the universities were involved in local programming back then and we reminisced about a few former station managers and program directors.

Then Drew Perkins came in and led me the studio for the interview. There was a single camera and several lights positioned on me and a station logo in the background. We talked on camera for about 45 minutes about the origins of the stations, my early recollections of shows I produced and interesting experiences. He asked if I remembered any programs from National Educational Television, the predecessor to PBS and I told him I didn’t remember much about those programs.  

I don’t know whether the program’s focus is solely on Channels 45/49, but it was an interesting experience. I recounted for him how I saw the first broadcast of “Sesame Street.” I was a senior in college at Miami University and I watched the program in the control room at WMUB-TV with several of my Radio-TV major classmates. We were blown away by what we saw. The hit show “Laugh In” had mesmerized us the previous year and watching this program for pre-school kids had the same effect.

The week before I was scheduled to leave, I had another potential complication. Last summer, Pam noticed a red blotch about the size of a dime on my back between my shoulder blades. About a week before Christmas, she commented again about it and I went to see my doctor right after the New Year holiday. He referred me to a dermatologist who took a biopsy sample of the that lesion and another under my right arm.

The day of the interview, I received a phone call from my doctor’s office stating that both lesions were basal cell carcinoma, or skin cancer. The good news is this form of cancer is very slow growing and doesn’t spread to other parts of the body. The dermatologist said I could wait until I return in April to have them removed. It was a tense couple of days before I got the diagnosis because I would have postponed my trip if more immediate treatment was necessary.

The day of the journey was hectic and my flights from Cleveland to Denver and then Denver to Las Vegas were both packed. When I arrived at McCarran International Airport in Vegas, I only had an hour and a half to get to the Budget car rental location on the Strip to pick up my rental car before it closed. Fortunately, my luggage got on the carousal quickly and I took a taxi cab to the rental car. I have a Kia Rio sedan that is pretty good and I saved about $600 by picking it up there instead of at the airport.

My first full day in Vegas, I drove about a half hour to see Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. Seeing it in person, you realize just how significant an engineering accomplishment it is. Also, Las Vegas and the major cities in Southern California most likely wouldn’t have developed into a significant size without the electrical power and consistent source of water provided by the dam.

Another striking thing I saw is the light band of soil and rock on islands in Lake Mead above the current waterline. The lake’s water level has dropped significantly in recent years due to drought conditions upstream.

On the way home I stopped for lunch at the CoffeeCup Café in Boulder City and had a delicious breakfast burger with egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato and thousand island dressing in a large bagel. It was delicious. Boulder City is the tourist center for the dam and Lake Mead region and was full of hotels, motels, restaurants and shops.

On Saturday, I decided to check out Henderson and spent about an hour driving around the area. I drove northeast out of town to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. I took a short walk on a trail out into the desert. At the trailhead there was a sign warning not to hike the trail in June though August because of the dangerous heat, but in January it was very comfortable.

I returned by mid-afternoon to watch my Kentucky Wildcats beat Texas Tech in overtime and spent a quiet evening watching TV in my casita.

I will have more about my travels in my next blog. See you then.

Who is Your Favorite Sportscaster?

If you want to start a good argument among a bunch of guys, just raise the question: “Who’s your favorite sportscaster?” While talking about their favorites, most sports fans also will readily tell you who they don’t like.

Ever since I was very young, I have been a sports fan and one of my true pleasures was listening to a good sportscaster describe the action on the radio when I was driving or working around the house. I don’t listen to sports on the radio very much anymore because so many games are on TV, cable, satellite and streaming sports channels.  But, I do have a few favorite announcers for different sports. So, in no particular order, here are some sportscasters that I really like.

My favorite sport is college basketball and my all-time favorite sports broadcaster is Cawood Ledford, who was the radio voice of the Kentucky Wildcats for 39 years from 1953 to 1992. Ledford’s smooth, tenor voice with a slight twang was made even more distinctive by his use of colloquial phrases to describe action. His call of a made shot was: “Bulls eye” or “Got it.” A long shot might draw “Tickles the strings” or “String music.” An easy layup was a “Snowbird” or a “Gimme.” A shot that hit the rim but went in was described, “Got a lot of iron on it, but it fell through.”

Ledford was great because, even though he was the home voice of the Wildcats, he wasn’t afraid to criticize his team when they weren’t playing well. When Kentucky trailed in a game, he would not shy away from telling his audience exactly what the Wildcats weren’t doing well even when they were coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp.

My favorite baseball announcer was ranked number one in the book “The Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball’s 101 All-Time Best Announcers” by Curt Smith. Vin Scully was the voice of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers for 67 years. I first heard Scully in the mid-60s when I had a shortwave radio and his broadcasts of Dodgers games were carried on Armed Forces Radio. Like Ledford, Scully knew so much about the game and was not afraid to tell listeners what his team or individual players were doing right or wrong. By chance, I was listening the night Scully described pitcher Don Drysdale of the Dodgers setting the major league record by pitching 58 consecutive shutout innings in 1968.

During the summer in the 60s, I spent lots of evenings scanning the AM Radio dial to listen to baseball broadcasters. Two other announcers I also want to mention are longtime Pittsburgh Pirates announcer Bob Prince and Harry Caray, who was the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. Both of them were much more entertaining than the cookie-cutter announcers you hear today. Prince and Caray provided interesting anecdotes and unique phrases when they called games.

Caray would describe an unusual play with his trademark “Holy Cow!” and as a long fly ball headed for the fence, Caray would say: “It might be. It could be. It is…a home run!”

Bob Prince had a unique take on the baseball cliché “can of corn” used to describe an easy fly ball to the outfield. When an easy fly ball was heading for the great Roberto Clemente in right field, Prince would say, “It’s a number 303 for Roberto.” Since I worked in a supermarket as a teenager, I knew that the number 303 described a standard size can of a vegetable or fruit. I loved this unique call.

For college football and college basketball, another personal favorite is the longtime CBS announcer Verne Lundquist who covered the SEC football game of the week and the NCAA Men’s’ Basketball tournament both on CBS. I especially enjoyed it when he was paired with Bill Raftery whether for a regular season basketball game or the tournament. These two men had a terrific comic rapport with lots of good-natured back and forth ribbing that made even a blowout entertaining.

In 1992, Lundquist and Raftery covered the legendary Kentucky-Duke East Regional Final for CBS, while Cawood Ledford announced the national radio broadcast for what many have called the greatest college basketball ever. There was a lot of talent at the broadcast table and on the court that night.

I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the work of Jim Nance, the number one sportscaster for CBS. I really enjoy his NFL work with Tony Romo and the two do an effective and entertaining job describing a game. Romo is one of those color analysts who always tells me something new about the game whenever I listen to him. He and Nance have a more personable manner than the number one Fox NFL team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.

My final mention goes to Ernie Johnson who hosts the NBA pre-game and post-game shows for TBS. He also anchors studio coverage of the NCAA Men’s’ Basketball tournament for TBS and CBS. His dad was the longtime voice of the Atlanta Braves and gained national prominence in the late 70s. Media mogul Ted Turner put the Braves games covered by his struggling independent TV station in Atlanta up on the satellite for cable systems across the country and the TV sports boom exploded.

The younger Ernie does a masterful job of managing the panel of Shaq, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley. He allows each of them to provide witty comments and insightful commentary, while keeping the show on track. It’s usually both entertaining and informative.

The Last of the Pontiacs

Recently, we had a sad day. No, I’m not talking about a mass-shooting or other type of disaster or a personal tragedy. It was a sad day for my wife Pam and I because we sold our final Pontiac automobile. Pam and I have driven Pontiacs almost exclusively since we married in 1970.

We just bought a 2019 Subaru Legacy and are selling our 2007 Pontiac G6.

You see, her grandfather Ralph “Pappy” Willis, started a family business called the Willis Motor Company in 1934 in North Canton, Ohio. The first year, he sold Plymouth autos, but switched to selling Pontiacs after that first year.

Willis Motors sold Pontiacs for more than 70 years until 2007 when Pam’s brother Jeff decided to cancel the Pontiac franchise and close the dealership following the sudden death of their dad Bill Willis. Pam’s father worked for his father “Pappy” beginning in his teens and took over the business when Ralph passed away in 1980. Jeff was the heir apparent.

In 2009, General Motors announced the termination of the Pontiac brand and the last cars rolled off the assembly line in 2010.

During the final days of the Willis Motors, Jeff had a handful of cars to sell and Pam and I decided to purchase the G6 sedan. So, it was one of the last Pontiacs sold by Willis Motors.

Pam and I married in 1970 and our first Pontiac, a bronze color 1970 Lemans was our wedding present. Pam’s dad always wanted her to drive at least a medium size car because he felt that would provide more protection during a crash.

Pam and I met at the end of our sophomore year at Miami University and I visited her later that summer. When I pulled into her driveway that Friday evening, I’m sure her dad was appalled at seeing my 1959 VW Beetle with the front hood tied down with piece of rope. After that visit, whenever I came to North Canton to visit, he made sure to have a larger used car available for us to use.

Sometimes he let us use a Bonneville, Pontiac’s largest sedan and driving that was a lot different than driving a VW Beetle. Looking out the front windshield, the Bonneville’s hood seemed as large as the flight deck on an aircraft carrier. Another time he let use use a four-speed stick shift GTO, Pontiac’s classic performance car and that was quite an experience, too.

My favorite “loaner” from my future father-in-law was a blue 1967 Pontiac Tempest convertible that he let us use during Memorial Day weekend in 1969. The weather was perfect that weekend and Pam and I logged a lot of miles enjoying the northeast Ohio countryside with the top down and the radio blaring.

I loved that car and I asked Bill how much it cost. The price tag of $1,300 was way too much for a kid who had another year of college and was making about two dollars an hour at his summer job.

After we married, we always had one nearly new Pontiac and I drove mostly older used cars. When it was time to replace my older car, we would check with Pam’s dad and buy a car traded in for a new Pontiac. Many of his customers traded for new cars every three of four years, so he had a steady supply of decent cars for us to choose from. Many times, those were not Pontiacs.

In the early 80s, when we both had good jobs, we splurged and became a two-Firebird couple. Pam got her Pontiac sports car first, a white 1980 model that didn’t seem too sporty enough for her. So her dad arranged to have a horizontal red racing stripe put on each side and replaced the interior with red, cloth seats.

A couple of years later, I bought a new bronze color Firebird that was the spiffiest car I ever owned. I had it a couple of years before it was stolen one day in Pittsburgh while I was visiting a friend. The police recovered it several weeks later, but the radio-cassette player had pried out of the dashboard, the seats damaged and the wheels and pop-up headlights stolen.

I used an insurance company loaner for a few weeks while my poor Firebird was being repaired. I drove it home from Pittsburgh one evening while looking at the gaping hole in the dashboard where the radio had been. Bill’s mechanic examined the car after I brought it back to Ohio and we decided to wholesale the car because it has been treated so poorly by the criminals who stole it.

Last year we decided to replace both of our older, high-mileage Pontiacs. First, I bought a 2013 Honda CRV from Pam’s brother Jeff, who currently sells for a used car dealer in North Canton. I sold my 2004 Pontiac Vibe with 184,000 miles on it and I hated to see that car go. It was arguably the best car I ever owned, a small SUV with a luggage rack on top that we used to take our son Brian to and from college in St. Louis.

So, the last Pontiac we own is currently for sale at Jeff’s used car lot in North Canton. The dark gray 2007 Pontiac G6 sedan with about 117,000 miles also was a great car. Because it was about the last car sold by Willis Motors, it holds a special, sentimental place in our memories.

It is more than a car, it’s a memento of a family business that was a big part of Pam’s life. And mine, too.

My Tale of Two Cities

This is my personal tale of two cities and my reaction to the horrible tragedy that has befallen each. The cities, Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, both hold an important place in my life and I grieve with them as I write this.

They are very different cities. Dayton is a somewhat typical Midwestern city that was once anchored by an internationally-known company and large auto-related manufacturing plants that have since moved elsewhere. The area still has Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the historical notoriety of being the birthplace of the Wright Brothers, who invented the first airplane.

Nearly 1,600 miles southwest is El Paso, Texas, at the very western tip of that state and directly across the Rio Grande River from Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. El Paso is also home to a major military base, Ft. Bliss, and is a major commercial and banking hub for western Texas.

The two cities are now linked in history by two acts of violence that occurred only about 13 hours apart. On a sunny, hot Saturday morning, a lone gunman with an AK-47 rifle opened fire in a Walmart parking lot in El Paso and then went into the store to continue his killing spree. He killed 22 people and injured 26 more before he was arrested a short distance from the store.

This shooting took place in a large shopping area that straddles I-10 for several miles and includes the Vista Cielo Mall to the east of downtown El Paso. The suspect, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, allegedly drove 600 miles from suburban Dallas before his bloody attack. Federal government authorities will charge him with domestic terrorism and hate crimes because of a manifesto he published on a white supremacy web site saying he wanted to kill Mexican immigrants to prevent them from taking over the country.

Just 13 hours later, a lone gunman, 24-year-old Connor Betts, from nearby Bellbrook, Ohio, began a shooting rampage in the Oregon district, a popular nightlife district with bars and restaurants east of downtown Dayton. This attack lasted about a minute before several Dayton Police Department officers, who were routinely patrolling the area, shot and killed the shooter before he could enter a crowded night club.

In this attack, nine were killed and 20 more were wounded. As I write this, police still don’t have a precise motive for this attack, but one of the fatalities was the 22-year-old sister of the shooter.

So, two cities that are so different are now connected forever because of these atrocities. I am writing about each of them because I have a personal connection to both.

When I was 14, my family moved from Columbus, Ohio, to the Dayton area because my dad accepted a new job. I lived in the suburbs and attended Archbishop Alter High School in nearby Kettering. Because this was more than 50 years ago, I’m don’t know what the Oregon district was like back then. When I turned 18 and was legally permitted to drink 3.2 percent beer, my friends and I tended to visit bars along Brown Street close to the University of Dayton. While I was in college at Miami University in nearby Oxford, Ohio, I still returned to the Dayton area during holiday breaks and worked there during the summer months. Since my 50-year class reunion in 2016, I have kept in touch with several high school classmates who live in the Dayton area via Facebook.

While I don’t have a direct connection to the victims of the Dayton shooting, I still feel emotional about the tragic deaths of a group of people enjoying a warm summer night in the city that was an important part of my growing up.

My connection with El Paso is much more recent. To get away from the cold Ohio winter, I decided to rent an AirBnb property from mid-January to the end of March this year in the Mission Hills section of El Paso. Why El Paso? When doing my research about where to spend the winter, I was intrigued by that city’s proximity to Mexico, both in location and culture and the dry desert climate.

I was not disappointed with my choice. This city of 680,000 is vibrant and interesting with a mix of both American and Mexican cultures. About the half of the population of El Paso has a direct family link to nearby Mexico. I rented a casita or small house while there and I could see Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua from the street in front of my house,

I took some non-credit classes at the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) and learned about the history and culture of the area that locals call the Borderland. I met some interesting people there and was intrigued how the two cultures exist side-by-side in this city. At the local supermarket, restaurants, coffee shops and on campus, hearing people speak both English and Spanish was an everyday occurrence.

I went to El Paso to get relief from my chronic asthma and allergies, but the elevation of the city of about 3,800 feet, proved to be a problem for my breathing. If not for that, I would gladly go back next winter. I really liked the city and the Borderland area.

Because the shootings in El Paso were apparently racially motivated, my heart goes out to the people of a community where Americans and Latinos live and work side-by-side in relative harmony. El Paso’s crime rate has historically been much lower than the national average for a city its size.

So, I was deeply affected by the events of in both Dayton and El Paso. I have a great deal of love for both communities and they are both an important part of my life, although separated by about 50 years.

One final note. Ironically, both Dayton and El Paso are linked by one thing I love: college basketball. The University of Dayton Flyers have been a nationally-ranked mid-major power for years and I still root for them most of the time, even though I am not an alumnus. They are a prominent part of the community that was an important to me when I was growing up.

UTEP was formally called Texas Western University and, in 1966, the Miners won the NCAA national basket ball championship over Kentucky. I attended a couple of games while I was in El Paso and joined fans in applauding a couple of players and the coach’s wife when they were honored, even though they beat my graduate school’s alma mater. The movie “Glory Road” celebrates this incredible story.

So, I am very sad about the fate these two cities shared. I’m not going to comment about our country’s gun laws or immigration policy here. These are two cities that did not deserve what happened this weekend, but they will be forever linked by tragic events. And, they will both have a place in my heart for as long as I live.