Good Canzano column

Another great column, John. Sad that it had to be for such a sad event (the follow-up column will likely bring many tears from your readers).

As for those who periodically bash Canzano, he may not be a typical/old-school-style sports columnist, but he's a damn good writer regardless.

[ / canzano fangirl ]

 

John, bravo for having the nads to come on here without hiding behind a phony screen name. Not all of us are brave enough to do that

That said, when I have a body of work as impressive as yours, maybe I'll ditch the phony screen name and go big time. Or maybe I'll just keep this one so I can curse and continue to make snarky comments about writers who are better than I am.

Kudos again, and keep up the good work!

 

It's my pleasure John...

So what's the word on Brandon Roy? Roy for ROY is a no brainer at this point would ya say?
Oh and ...how did you originally find Blazer Betty? Do you know a lot of fans that have interesting stories to tell? Do they come to you? or do you search them out, or both?

 

Family of Blazers fans has lesson about rebuilding
By John Canzano

The e-mail was waiting, jammed in my in box one morning along with a few hundred others responding to a column I'd written on the Trail Blazers.

This was more than a year ago. I don't remember exactly what the note said, but it was signed "jt" at the bottom and he was a die-hard Blazers fan. I responded by cutting and pasting a dismissive, formulaic response: "Thanks for the note. Write any time."

Then, I hit "Send" and moved on to the next e-mail.

A year later, I was in the car, driving across the Ross Island Bridge, into the heart of Southeast Portland, toward the rental house where JT's family lives.

And I felt numb.

I drove past dozens of city blocks, and some boarded up storefronts, until the road turned from pavement to gravel. Then it turned from gravel to dirt. And when I came upon the address he'd given me on the telephone, I found a smiling 5-year-old boy standing in the front yard wearing Spiderman underwear on his head like a hat.

His name was Payton. And when he saw me climb out of my car, he shouted toward the house, "Canzano's here!" and two other children came running out, smiling and waving.

Then, JT, embarrassed, slid out the front door, swiped the underwear off his son's head and said, "Those had better be clean."

Maybe you're like a lot of Blazers fans, fretting over the news of what the Sonics sale means to Portland. Or maybe you're concerned the Blazers are going to finish with the worst record in the league again next season. But if we're really talking about the worries of Blazers fans, there is a three-bedroom house in Southeast Portland that might be a good place for us to begin and end the discussion.

After that initial e-mail, in 2005, JT wrote me again the next day. And again the next. And I've come to expect that every time I write a column about the Blazers, there will be an e-mail from JT waiting for me.

I've also come to understand that there is always more to the story.

Until this week, I didn't know his real name. I didn't know where he worked. I didn't know if he had children. Or if he was 20 years old or 90. I never asked. He never told. But I knew that he loved the Blazers, and that he had good punctuation, and I noticed the only capital letter he used was "I," for some reason. And after what I've learned this week, I feel ashamed that I waited so long to ask questions.

His real name is Jason Taylor. He's 29. He has three perfect children --a boy and two girls, ages 5 to 11. Six months ago, he was laid off from his job manufacturing airplane parts. After that, he was forced to sell his house to avoid a foreclosure.

Sad stuff, you're thinking.

Except JT never mentioned any of this until last week, when he was apologizing for not checking in more regularly with a Blazers note, because he was busy taking care of the kids and had taken a part-time job delivering this newspaper in "Felony Flats."

 

We were co-workers now, I remember thinking.

I asked how it was going with the kids. And he said that they were out of school for the summer, so he had them all the time, even on his morning newspaper route. So I inquired, in an e-mail, where his wife was when he was working.

His reply came, "She died."

JT's wife, Roxanne, lost a battle with a rare blood disease --myelodysplasia --in February 2005. She received more than 600 blood transfusions and spent her last 37 days in a bed at OHSU Hospital. And toward the end, when she knew time was short, Roxanne pulled JT close and asked, "Do you think Payton will even remember me?" and JT promised her that he would never let any of the children forget.

It's why Roxanne's photographs are all over the house. It's why the family talks about her daily, telling funny stories and laughing about how much she liked the beach. JT also had her picture tattooed on his left forearm.

"Roxy will always be my everything," he said.

They'd met when they were both in high school, got married, bought a house, had children. And now, the kids and her memory are all that is left.

There is Payton, who has a fuzzy, shaved head and likes to dart up and down the hallways, giggling and teasing. And there is Josie, 8, who has her old kindergarten graduation certificate proudly taped to her bedroom wall. And there is Jade, 11, the family left-hander, who won a writing contest and the "People Respecting Others Award" at her elementary school. And, there is JT, who always comes up big in a pinch.

On Wednesday morning, Payton poured himself a bowl of stale Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast. Then, because the entire neighborhood has an ant infestation, his older sisters huddled around him at the kitchen table, helping pick the insects out of his bowl before they poured in the milk.

"We're going to be fine," JT said. "Remember, kids, we need to close up the cereal boxes tight or that's going to happen again."

They barbecue a lot. And because JT never can seem to get the noodles right, Jade, who has become a mother figure to her younger siblings, cooks the macaroni and cheese. Inside the family freezer is meat. And inside the refrigerator is milk. And yogurt. And cheese. JT registered for food stamps two weeks ago.

"Talk about the most degrading experience of my life. When you're relying on government assistance, you know you've hit a low point."

That happened right around the time JT picked up the newspaper route. He'd wake the kids in the middle of the night, pour them into the car in their pajamas, half asleep. Then he'd drive through the Southeast Portland neighborhood known for aggravated assaults, burglary and arson, delivering the 112 newspapers on his route as fast as he could while his children slept in the back seats.

As he drove, JT asked himself, "Am I going to get shot here?" And, "Are we going to get carjacked if I slow down?" And, "I have a degree in accounting from a business college. What am I doing in Felony Flats in the middle of the night?!?"

 

After too many of those nights, JT decided to give up the route and look for something better. He has another part-time job doing event planning. The hours are scarce, though. So next week, he will begin looking for a full-time job again. And yet, when you ask him about his responsibilities and worries, he doesn't complain, or ask for help. And you find out later that when he cries, JT goes into the closet in his bedroom and closes the door so his children won't hear him.

"We're going to pull out of this. We have more than a lot of people do. We have each other.

"I couldn't ask for better kids."

Then JT tells you that during the NBA season, just before bedtime, the family sits together in the garage and listens to announcers Brian Wheeler and Antonio Harvey call the Blazers games, just like when Roxanne was there with them. And when he was even younger, JT said, he used to sit with his grandparents and listen to Bill Schonely broadcast the games.

"The trumpets they play at the beginning of every broadcast," he said, "take me right back there."

Last season, the Blazers lost a league-high 61 games. Season ticket holders were throwing away unused tickets by the fistful. And while all of that was going on, JT scraped together some extra money and bought a three-game package --two tickets to each game. Then, he asked his mother to baby-sit, and JT took each of his children to one game.

"They all got a night alone with Daddy and the Blazers. We're going to find a way to do it again next season.

"Hey, if you're not with the team through tough times, you're nothing but a bandwagon fan."

JT smiles when he says this, and so do the kids, who are at the kitchen table together, drawing pictures of rainbows and flowers and one another with a set of marker pens.

Said Payton: "Canzano, I have a bald head just like you."

Then, his sisters buckle over, giggling.

This job takes me lots of places. I get to bring you along. Together, we step in and out of lives sometimes. I got to know JT and his children, a little. And maybe you do, too, now.

They've had a rough stretch, but they've rolled through life, unfazed, grounded --smiling and laughing even about the ants in the cereal box. And when I left their house, I waved goodbye, drove off, but then, before my car reached pavement again, I had to pull over. I sat there, with my engine idling, parked on the side of the road, looking back at their house with tears running down my cheeks.

Not because I feel sorrow for the Taylor family. I'm convinced they're going to make it. I cried because I've never seen a happier, more resilient bunch. Also, because their father pulled them into the street after he thought I was gone and played catch with all three of them at once.

"I'm a true fan," JT always wrote.

Suddenly, I'm a true fan of the Taylor family.

This is real life, not the NBA. Worry about the basketball team relocating if you want, but worry more about the families who are forced to move when their own economic model is broken. And maybe it was good for me to hear the laughter drowning out the worry in that house, because I missed it the first time around, in all those e-mails where JT expressed concern over the Blazers' development in the backcourt.

So much has happened to this family in such a short, intense period of time. Focus on the rebuilding Blazers if you want, but while we're doing that, let's not forget the lesson the rebuilding Taylors are trying to teach us.

We root for the wrong groups of people sometimes.

As you walk out of the Taylor house, there is a plaque hanging on the wall, just to the left of the doorway. You can't miss it. Jade, the 11-year-old, put it there. And it hangs low enough for every eyeball in the house to see it.

On the plaque, there is a small painting of a brilliant yellow sunflower, along with some soulful words.

It reads: "Sunny days are here again."

 

Jesus. After that I realized I'm not a very good writer.

 

Bump for the dude that wanted to read the Canzano column.

 

That was excellent. Thanks, bullwinkle. I'm a Canzano fan.

 

Wow. That was damn good.

 

Thanks for stopping by, John...keep up the good work.