Something positive during very bad times

Since it's a tough challenge to keep upbeat and think positive during troubling times, 3 questions -

1.) If you could go back and cover any famous athlete, or sporting event, in history what would it be?

2.) Your ideal road trip. Where would it be? What would you do?

3.) You're at your favorite restaurant. You can have dinner with any three people, or elect to go with cigars and scotch with three people. Which would you pick, and who would you choose?


My answers...
1.) Muhammad Ali. I'd follow Ali up until Manila.
2.) I'd road trip it south to the Keys with my brother to go shark/marlin fishing (we'd stop for po-boys in Louisiana, gambling there and in Miss.).
3.) Scotch and cigars with Paul Newman, Cormac McCarthy and Mike Leach.

 

1. Mike Tyson in the infancy of his boxing career.

2. Cross country road trip, stopping every few hours. Endless possibilities.

3. Favorite restaurant; my dad, my brother and my grandfather on my dad's side (RIP).

 

1. Ayrton Senna. Once interviewed him about auto racers and death. He gave great answers, I wrote the story and taped over the tape. Damnit. Damnit. Damnit.

2. Mrs. Lono and the Lono kids. Anywhere.

3. Dinner. Hunter Thompson, Bruce Springsteen, Voltaire.

 

1) 1950 World Cup -- Belo Horizonte, Brazil (USA 1, England 0)

2) Tokyo. Damn near everything.

3) Dinner with Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Albert Einstein

 

1. 1972 summit series
2. South Africa for crocs, snakes and spiders. And large carnivores.
3. There's a couple-few I'd love to see again, but only alone.

 

1. Bobby Orr in 1970
2. Nova Scotia in a '67 Land Rover
3. Cigar and scotch with Gil Evans (jazz arranger), Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley.

 

1. Grew up a Dodgers fan so I would have loved to have been there when "next year" finally happened, 1955 World Series, Dodgers vs. Yankees. It's a fanboi pick, but the whole dynamic of Brooklyn vs. Bronx, little brother rising up against big brother and all that would be fascinating. Would love to have seen Ebbets.

2. Road trip means I don't hop a plane and leave the continent, so I'd say back to the Pacific Northwest, a bike, my running shoes, good views of Mt. Hood, great coffee, equal mix of time spent in places like Astoria and Canon Beach and in Seattle and Portland. If all those papers weren't slashing jobs I'd move up there tomorrow.

3. Dinner. Jeff Buckley (what were you thinking when you jumped in the river?), Kurt Vonnegut (we'd have to step out to the courtyard so he could puff on a Pall Mall), and three, well, three can be a lot of people, I don't care.

Or a table for five with my original nuclear family, dad (RIP), mom and all three of us siblings, who are now scattered to the four (well, three) winds. It's rare for us to all be together and all five of us together when dad was alive didn't happen enough.

 

1. Babe Ruth in his heyday, that would be a constant good time.
2. All over the SEC during football season, just for the tailgating.
3. Cigars with Winston Churchill, Casey Stengel and Jesus Christ just to see what all the fuss is about.

 

I thought about Churchill. But then I was like, well, Newman's my favorite actor, and I'd bug McCarthy and keep asking how he became such a brilliant writer. And I've talked with Leach before, and we spent hours talking about pirates and history. Very good times.

 

1. 1908 NL pennant race. That Merkle's Boner game might have been fun to write.

2. In an RV cross country, stop off at some historic sites, and visit plenty of MLB and minor league baseball stadiums. Wife and kids can join me on occasion.

3. Two sets of three for dinner. The first would be my three grandparents, who died before I was born. The second set would be FDR, Vince Lombardi and Laura Ingalls Wilder (loved her books when I was a kid).

 

1. Babe Ruth as his skills were starting to decline.
2. Cruising the Pacific coast, top to bottom, mostly in a convertible.
3. Cigars and scotch with Chuck Klosterman, Richard Pryor and a young Ronald Reagan.

 

1. George Brett during the summer of 1980 ("The man who could hit, but couldn't sit").
2. To the Cape in the near future to watch the first return trip to the moon.
3. Warren Zevon, Michael Winslow and Marilyn Monroe