Old Time Religion

Let me paint you a picture.

Just outside Isom, KY there is a section of bottom land that follows the Kentucky River for a half mile or so, before dividing in two were it meets a creak flowing in from the west.  Bottom land in a place like Appalachia is valuable and well used, and this one is no different.  It's just wide enough that you would probably blow out your elbow trying to hit the woods on the other side with a baseball.  But big enough to hold the river, a set of train tracks, Holcomb's Custard Stand(yes please!), a half dozen houses, a junk yard and a concrete slab.  That concrete is all that remains of the metal building were I used to work, and a safe, warm, and dry place for long wooden benches that were stored there every year by prisoners after the summer fun.  Oh yeah that bottom land also manages to shoe horn in enough space for the rodeo grounds, a stage, and a couple rows of long lean twos were folks sold crafts and cotton candy during the Isom Days Rodeo.  In the middle of all that there is a white cinder block church and a cemetery. Not unlike many churches in that part of the Bible Belt it has a tin roof and a marque out by the road that invites the passer by to Sunday School at 9:00 a.m.

Had you been looking for me on Good Friday evening in 2007 you would have found me slumped in a pea green padded pew in that very church.  The crowd was thin as it always is at Isom Presbyterian Church.  Maybe it was a little thicker that night it being as it was Good Friday but its hard to say.  At one point my butt got tired which prompted me to slouch forward with my elbows resting on my knees. It was then just as the preacher called for a moment of quiet reflection that one of the older ladies in the row just in front of me leaned in close to the ear of her pew mate and whispered "did you hear that we got a new coach?"

Next weekend baring a major injury or the rapture, the University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball team will win its ninth NCAA basketball championship.  This years team is un-beaten and fully stocked with future NBA stars.  They recently beat West Virginia so badly they blocked more shots(7) then the Mountneers made in the paint(6).  The Saturday night two point win against Notre Dame was a rare nail bitter for UK Nation, but they survived to advance to this years Final Four, their 17th appearance.  Since 1903 UK hoops as been the life blood pumping through the veins of the Bluegrass State. It's rare to meet someone who is not a card carrying member of the church that meets at Rupp Arena in Lexington.  Seemingly every car, house and human in the state is clad in the blue and white of the faithful. Sure occasionally you may see a camo hat adorning the head the of the guy in line ahead of you at Walmart.  But look more closely, its sure to bare the interlocking UK on its face.

Basketball in general in The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a akin to a religion, not unlike football in Alabama. Both states don't have professional teams(allegedly) to water down the zeal of sports fans. The university is the only game in town and it shows. Even three hours from Lexington in our rural mountain county everyone lives and breaths with the 'Cats.  So one night when as every TV and eyeball in Whitesburg was tuned in to see the game something happened that would have broken the internet; assuming that is that we all weren't still on dial up.  At one point during the break in the action the camera panned the crowd of worshipers at Rupp.  And there in the middle of it all sat our very own mayor, a man in his sixties. And beside him his twenty something girlfriend.  The shock wave that rolled through the bottoms and hollers was like a hundred year flood!  Needless to say, if you are going to have an affair make sure not to let it out of the bag at a 'Cats game.

It happens at a lower level as well.  When we lived there my wife worked in the school system during one of the toughest winters Eastern Kentucky had seen in a long time.  At one point schools were closed for something like 20 or more days in a row due to snow. When the hollers and Pine Mountain were finally safe enough for the school buses to run school was canceled because the high school girls team made it to the playoffs.  Priorities, priorities.

I get it.  Life for many in Eastern Kentucky is hard! Many of the systems there including sports are broken.  Living in a place were its seems even the sun has a hard time shinning is rough.  I left there because I could, but I also didn't join the 'Nation.  Maybe if I had I would still be there.  Next weekend I am going to be routing for UK.  Not because I am a fanatic, but because I know what life is like for so many who are in those deep dark hills of Eastern Kentucky.  Trust me, they deserve this!

Knicks Win, Knicks Win, The Knicks Win!!

The New York Knicks were crushed the other night by the Nuggets in beautiful downtown Denver. The game was tied after the first quarter, but four straight possessions on which they turned the ball over right before halftime resulted in 12 points for the Nuggets and the rout was on.  Oh sure they cut the lead to 20 at one point in the third quarter, which made my wife take her head off my shoulder for a minute, yawn and ask for more popcorn, but a couple three's from the Nugg's and it was over.   But did I mention that the Knicks won that night?

If you are a faithful follower of E Pluribus Marvus you know that we are life long fans of the New York Basketball Franchise "Keep the Nets in New Jersey".  If you're new to this space do yourself a favor and pick a different team to suffer with!  My team is on pace for its worst season in franchise history but you see, last nights boat racing in our fair city was a win because it means they are on pace for the worst record in the league this season. A loss is a win because it means the Knicks chance for the most ping pong balls in the upcoming draft lottery grows every day as the season drags on. It's weird to go sit in the stands at a game and root for your team to lose.  I tried but I still found myself yelling at Andrea Bargnani  for shooting brick after brick, and cursing the ref for bogus foul calls.  My heart wants them to win, but my brain wants them to get hammered.  They need to suck the rest of the season, but it's hard for those of us who love them to have the intervention.

Prior to the game we met up with a guy I have written about here in past.  Dennis Doyle quit his job and decided to spend about twenty grand of his own money going to every Knicks game this season. He had no idea when he signed up that it would be such a labor of love.  We talked for a few minutes before the game about his travels with the team as they lose night after night.  He told me it feels like half comedy and half tragedy.  I wrote earlier in the season that I was jealous of his adventure, but after last nights 28 point drubbing I went home feeling blue.  I can only imagine what he feels like after 50 nights like that. Salt Lake in March is next for Doyle; good luck with that!  But they need this losing right?  And won't his book be better if they suck?

At one point during the game the in house broadcast kept showing a guy across the arena from us in an empty section of the upper deck holding a sign that read " Knicks rule, Nuggets drule".  Every time it flashed on the jumbo-tron the crowd would boo.  I couldn't help laughing because I hadn't seen a sign like that since junior high.  Eventually, thankfully Rocky, the Nuggets mascot saw the sign and had enough (oh yeah check this out).  As the crowd roared he valiantly climbed up toward the guy with the sign, forsaking the stairs and instead scaling the walls between the sections.  The crowed was in a frenzy by the time he  tore the sign from the poor fans hands and ripped it into pieces.  Moments later the guy was gone and the pieces of the neon sign spent the rest of the night innocently crumpled in a seat.  That poor Knicks fan was abused by a dude dressed as some sort of cat character while the crowed delighted.  It was fake folks!  The whole thing was a ruse by the Nuggets arena team to entertain the masses.   By the way, not unlike the parading of a soldier on to the court during a break so fans could punch their patriotism card for that day ( nytimes.com-please-don't-thank-me-for-my-service ). The only thing that gets a bigger cheer are the t-shirts and bags of popcorn that satiate us.

That stunt was really a metaphor for the the whole game that night.  The Nuggets won, the crowd cheered and the players passed around fist bumps.  But it was fake folks: my team won by losing that night.  Winning is losing? Losing is winning? It's all so hard to figure out.  Trust me. If your team is ever a dumpster fire, you'll get it.  You can't really change unless you've hit rock bottom.