Right or Wrong: Let us give thanks

First appeared on November 25, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

Let us give thanks. Thanks to the Pilgrims with their drab frock coats and blunderbusses. Thanks to the natives who showed this desperate band of immigrants the tricks they would need to survive a brutal winter. Things like how to grow corn and track deer and the best places to find cheap gas and cigarettes.

And let us not forget the turkeys. A bird so good we eat him only once a year. Poor souls, who will, by the millions, give themselves up for us to celebrate the legendary triumphs of our ancestors. So how can it be that all this pomp and circumstance could be based on one big lie?
How could it be everything you were taught as kid is wrong? Historical truths that seemed the cornerstones of a nation suddenly dismissed. George Washington cutting down his cherry tree and Teddy Roosevelt inventing the Teddy Bear or the fact Donald Trump’s hair is real.

And so historians, who apparently have nothing better to do than sit around trying to prove other historians wrong, tell us the Pilgrims, forever the stalwarts of purity and righteousness, were not all devout Christians. They weren’t all nice to the natives and, at least when it came to their wardrobe, they didn’t all favor fifty different shades of gray.

They spoke of a government of, for and by the people and yet early on theirs was dominated by a religious elite. There were no cranberries, sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie at the first Thanksgiving, which leads most 7 year olds to wonder why you just can’t order a pizza.

For you this means it’s all been for nothing. Thirty plus years of bad football and choking down dry turkey as your Uncle Randy recounts the free throws he made to win that sectional game, all this over the bass beat of your father complaining about gas prices. And for what? For what historians would have us believe is a fake holiday?

So we’re left to decide for ourselves what we accept as truth and what we question. And at 5-6, can we really believe in the Indiana Hoosiers? A team that could easily boast wins over ranked opponents in Michigan, Iowa and Ohio State and yet had dropped 6 straight before downing Maryland last week.

A team one win away from strapping on their bowling shoes. And there, at the bottom of the schedule, a familiar foe awaits. Instead of finding two teams limping into an Oaken Bucket game hoping only to finish their seasons on a high note, a victory Saturday sends Indiana to their first bowl since George W. Bush was the Commander in Chief of Strategery. Meanwhile, Purdue arrives at 2-9 trying to jab a needle the size of a javelin into Kevin Wilson’s balloon.

These are not uncharted waters for the Hoosiers. This is not a New World. Still, can up really be up and down truly down? Was the Revolutionary War really fought against the British? Or could it have been three-foot tall aliens who just happened to fight using conventional European military tactics? These are the questions we’re forced to ask ourselves when historians tell us its entirely possible Lincoln never eclipsed 5’11, using blocks of wood in his boots instead to compensate for rabid insecurities.

So on this Thanksgiving, get out there and be the master of your own destiny. Believe in the unlikely, embrace the magic of your childhood or accept the so called conventional wisdom. Either way, it’s still a free country and nobody can dispute that. In the meantime just be careful believing in the Indiana Hoosiers because, revisionist history or not, they’ve let us down one too many times before.


© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Time to let it linger, on Veteran's Day

First appeared on November 10th, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

Francis Scott Key penned the Star Spangled Banner after watching the British shelling Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Fortunately for us Mr. Key didn’t have a Smart Phone or he’d probably have missed most of the rocket’s red glare. For you and I this means our national anthem would most likely be “YMCA” or something by Dylan we’d all be forced to mumble in unison.

The first time I realized the flag was special was watching my older brother playing varsity basketball. The way a gym packed to the gills would rise together in silence, the energy of the impending contest and eager conversations of the blustery hayseeds suddenly tamed by a sober reverence for the flag.

And when the people sat down and the ball went up, I watched my brother throwing himself around on the floor, playing his guts out and he became a hero. November is reserved for heroes of a different lot. Those who personified honor, sacrifice and duty. The words often fall short for those of us on the outside looking in.

However, the flag bridges those two worlds. An omnipresent reminder that the duty of those who never served is to honor those who have. The flag is a one dimensional time machine capable of dropping you onto a battlefield in Gettysburg where you’re asked to charge across a vast open plain with nothing more than a blade of grass to hide behind, all the while a hailstorm of hot metal rains down upon you. And above the din of cannon fire and muskets, the piercing cries of men surround you, haunting and final.

It can take you to Normandy, where you’re shoulder to shoulder with a kid a country mile from the prime of life. And, when the panel of that landing craft drops, he glimpses for the first time the insurmountable odds awaiting him. The flag stands for the courage he showed to vault himself into the waist-deep tide. Water stained pink from the blood of friends, Nazi flak buzzing and ricocheting around him.

So you catch your eleven year old fooling with his phone during the Star Spangled Banner and, oh say, you can definitely see you’ve failed as a parent. This was it, your Final Exam and you just posted the old one legged A.

Mortified, you tell little Johnny he won’t see his phone until he’s 25 before throwing him in the car. You tear out of town, barreling east across the Ohio, pointing your wheels towards D.C. And somewhere around Harrisburg you find yourself hopelessly lost and have to ask Johnny to Google a new route.

By dawn’s early light you find yourself at the intersection of history, architecture, tradition and new ideas, the seat of change and heartbeat of freedoms continued evolution. But Washington is also a living celebration of those Americans who dared to defend our ideals. Stone figures with strong jowls, faces racked with determination, men who gave themselves up for a nation, a nation of people they would never come to know.

Old dead men who today find themselves surrounded by hot dog vendors and tee-shirt hockers, googly eyed tourists lost in a jungle of copper, bronze and limestone. And the limestone, my god the limestone, walls and halls and corridors, benches and arches, cornices, balustrades, everything we so proudly hailed carved from limestone.

Streets choked with slow moving tour buses carting anxious, pimply faced pre-teens. Kites of bright red and yellow, tails dragging in the wind, waving high above the rangers in broad-brimmed hats. Brave men and women charged with corralling the interest of these precocious pre-teens.
Bleary eyed, over medicated and restless children who don’t know George Bush from George Washington. And all this exploration and congestion and protestation rages before the watchful eyes of Honest Abe from his perch at the end of the Mall, his brow bent with uncertainty over the scene before him.

So stately upon his throne, high overlooking the reflecting pool, Lincoln has become the poster child for standing up for ones ideals. And as great as he was, how easily we forget Honest Abe’s line in the sand was defended by the hearts and souls of thousands.

We have to find a way to stop our lives, forgo the order and rigid scheduling and prioritized lists that shape our time. We owe this to all who’ve protected the freedoms we as Americans cherish.

So there you stand, in the shadow of Lincoln. You and little Johnny and little Johnny’s Smart Phone. And you linger as the pimply faced pre-teens race up and down the steps before an incredulous Ranger. You linger as the kites race higher and higher. You linger with little Johnny’s hand in yours. You linger so that these dead shall not have died in vain.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Time for Manning to kick the Colts

First appeared on November 6th, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

So your Colts are 3-5 and one person lighter on the payroll. They are a listing ship that has strayed far, far from course. A storm is brewing on the horizon, skies of dark blue and orange threaten as a power struggle has erupted at the helm.

Suddenly Jim Irsay, Chuck Pagano and Ryan Grigson are busy trying to elbow each other out of the way. Of course the bad news for Colts fans is, at this point it really doesn’t matter who grabs the wheel because nobody seems to know where they’re going anyway.

Pep Hamilton was forced off the plank, but don’t worry he didn’t see it coming. His face was buried in his poster-sized play chart hunting up another long pass play and he simply sunk like a stone. And now Rob Chudzinski has been handed the Scotch Tape and Superglue, so as to piece together what’s left of Andrew Luck’s ego. Meanwhile Luck, the once promising and unquestioned Captain, has been relegated to the hold, where he huddles in a dark corner, shell-shocked and shivering, mumbling to himself like a half-wit.

And the storm closes in as the ship rolls uncontrollably. An undefeated team, a tremendously talented defense and the future Hall of Famer the Colts gave up on four years ago are about to swamp what’s left of Indy’s half-submerged deck.

But he was done, his arm a noodle, no feeling in his hands. He can’t throw the deep ball anymore, look at his numbers. Manning isn’t what he used to be, Bob from Quality Control says, which is true, but he has a world class defense behind him you counter, one that has led him to an undefeated start. This is a point Bob is quick to shrug off as if he was the one who invented the Jet Sweep or Nickel Defense, which of course means conceding anything football to you is therefore forever beneath him.

Still, tired as he may appear, Manning’s Broncos are not the defenseless gazelle that has strayed from the herd, the one the Colts so desperately need to pounce on right now. Instead, they are a rabid she-wolf with superhuman strength and play every down as if you just kicked one of their pups in the teeth.

And so the greatest mind ever to play the sport sails in to town at the same time one of the games brightest young minds appears to have lost his. In the world of the NFL, the quarterback discussion will begin and end with Peyton until we are all dust in the wind, or Brett Favre attempts yet another comeback, whichever happens first.

So come on in Denver, everything else has gone wrong. Colts nation should embrace their impending beat down. They should open their arms and welcome the absolute skull-rattling thrashing their team will take Sunday. Here’s hoping the skies open up and it rains touchdowns. After all, the storybook years Peyton gave us deserve a Hollywood ending. One that includes his vanquishing the team that quit on him. And we all know a good vanquishing is not a true vanquishing without complete and utter domination.

Somehow it seems fitting that, for once, we should realize the fate so many suffered at the hands of Manning’s Colts for lo those many years. Don’t let the firing of Pep Hamilton fool you, this season is lost. With that in mind, let’s go out and set a new NFL record for points allowed. Let’s send Peyton out with more than a bang. Let’s send him out with an eruption of Krakatoan proportions.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Note to Cubs Fans: Beware, Curse Ahead

First appeared on October 14th, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

It’s not every day you find a goat blocking rush hour traffic. Still there he was. Standing right in front of your car, trying his best to train a wary eye on you while maintaining focus on the grass in his mouth. He chews on, wobbly-headed and busy reading you like a book.

A Cubs fan your whole life, you’ve suffered through forty plus years of futility. Forty plus years of aimlessly wandering a postseason desert. Forty years of this hairy little guy owning you. From those undersized horns and empty eyes down to his distinguished tassel, you know full well he’s just another bitter soul. Bitter for playing second fiddle all these years to his superstar cousin the sheep. And for what? When’s the last time anyone wore wool after all?

Your Cubs have National League Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year and Cy Young in the bag, but somehow it’s not enough. After 40 years, you want more. And here they stand, four wins away from their first World Series appearance since 1945.

The expectations of failure have haunted you since the All Star Break. They’re quick with a bar of soap first thing in the shower and from the passenger seat on the way to work, they grumble that maybe this new talk radio phase of yours has gone on a bit too long. They trudge beside you up the stairs, through a maze of cubicles all the way to the tiny one you share with Ed from Accounting, the one prized for being closest to the Men’s room, the same one littered with pictures of Ed’s nine year old son, the future Noble Laureate.

In 2007 you drove all the way to New Orleans and paid a Voodoo Lady $500 to lift the curse. And, after verifying your personal check numbers with her roommate, a part-time soothsayer who moonlighted as a bank teller, Madam Zydeco took the picture of the Bartman Catch you brought along, set it on fire, spread the ashes in a bowl of milk and told you to drink it. Three months later the Cubs were swept by the Diamondbacks in the NLDS.

Now, as you sit behind the wheel with a barrage of blaring horns reigning down on you, you’re seriously thinking about running this goat over. The Russian’s elbowed us out of Syria, why shouldn't you be able to nudge a brazen Bovidae out of the road?

Your belief ran hot and cold all season. Between Rizzo’s 30 home runs and 100 RBI’s, Bryant’s Franchise Rookie Record for homers and Jake Arietta’s inhuman second half stretch, it was all coming together and yet you resisted the urge to become fully invested. After all, you’ve seen the end of this one far too many times.

The experts say this was never supposed to be the year anyway. Its Maddon’s first season and the Cubs, despite being loaded with talent, are just too young. “Don’t put yourself through the pain of the NLCS,” Ed advises, shoulder to shoulder in your cubicle, “Why don’t you come watch Ed Jr. instead? He’s doing a public performance at the community theater, a solo piece on the Abacus he wrote himself.”

Seventy years ago a ticket taker outside Wrigley did what any right thinking human would do and refused to let a goat into a baseball game. Since that time it’s been total darkness on the Northside. And now, the chance of a lifetime presents itself. The chance to erase 70 years of futility with a pair of squealing of tires. After all, they’ve come this far, just a nudge is all they need.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

An open letter to the Indianapolis Colts

First appeared on September 30th, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

Dear Indianapolis Colts,

I just wanted to drop you a line to say thanks. Thank you Jim Irsay for not coming out of the stands at halftime Sunday in Nashville to fire Chuck Pagano, despite the fact every single Colt Fan, and probably a few who’ve spent time at a Pagano family reunion, fully expected you to do so.

Thank you Andrew Luck for deciding at some point in the Fourth Quarter that "spreading the ball around" doesn't mean sharing it with the other team. And while I’ve got your ear, rumor has it you were one pick away from Fans starting a movement to sign Out of Control Beard Andrew Luck to the roster. This means I’ll need you to keep hitting your targets, because Out of Control Beard Andrew Luck is so creepy a cheesy commercial is the only place I ever want to see him.

Thank you coaches for drafting Phillip Dorsett to electrify the return game only to make the decision to play Griff Whalen in front of him. I understand it’s common practice for rookies to learn from vets, but I’m fairly certain taking a knee and fair catching a football are both things Phillip learned at a very young age.

Thank you front office, coaches and players for not squelching the talk of dysfunction within the brass of the franchise. For, if you were in fact planning to go 0-16 before Sunday, at least those lonely, tortured and completely inadequate souls in the part-time-pretend sports media would have something interesting to write about.

Thank you offensive line for mixing up your strategies of drawing a holding penalty on any play that garners more than five yards with blocking absolutely no one. We understand this is a delicate balance and hats off to you for maintaining it for a full 60 minutes.

Thank you Pat McAfee for both being Pat McAfee as well as taking a chance on Sunday when everything was going completely wrong. And while your converted fake punt was almost immediately rendered irrelevant by another Luck interception, we still applaud anyone willing to stick their neck out while everyone around is busy shoving their heads in the sand.

Thank you Robert Mathis for enduring 10 surgeries and a grueling rehab schedule just to get back on the field. For even when all I had hoped for was crumbling down around me in a fury of turnovers, missed tackles and holding penalties, just seeing 98 getting after the quarterback again was enough to give me a spark of hope.

Thank you Dwight Lowery for being the only defensive player to actually get off the bus before the Fourth Quarter on Sunday. Your Pick six fooled me into believing my old team was back and then, upon returning to the belief my old team was in fact still enjoying quiet time in a lounge chair on a private Mexican beach, you intercepted another pass and saved me.

Finally, thank you to all the Colts. Despite waiting until the fourth quarter to do so, thank you for finally showing the fight, toughness, grit, execution and emotion I’d been expecting to see from you in the first two games. And while it remains unclear how people will remember me, one thing’s for sure, because of your efforts Sunday nobody has given up on me yet.

Thanks Again

Your Season


© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Colts Season off to Inharmonious Start

First appeared on September 17, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

Abraham Lincoln once said “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. And while that crusty old history teacher, the weird one whose short in the leg slacks were funnier than his jokes, told you Honest Abe was speaking about the unraveling of the United States, for all we know he could have been talking about the Republican Party in 2016 or Caitlyn Jenner’s closet.

Those in the non-part-time pretend media would argue Lincoln was editorializing about the Indianapolis Colts Front Office. And as rumors swirl over West 56th, the little people get wind that Grigson hates Pagano and Pagano loathes Grigson while, at some point, Jim Irsay sets his pail down long enough to tweet “all is well” from his flooding deck.

Yet, here in the cheap seats, we’re left struggling to understand why it really matters if Pagano and Grigson hate each other, neither one of them catch, throw or run with the ball after all. It would seem we’re beating the bushes for someone to blame, some underlying issue or the dreaded “circumstances beyond our control”. Something to explain why those things we want most from life continue to elude us, for an American life is not complete without a handful of convenient excuses.

Unfortunately for fans of the Horseshoe, harmony isn’t available online, even for Amazon Prime members. Harmony is a warm summer evening, standing bare footed in cool grass, spraying the petunias and coneflowers as the soft sounds of Wheel of Fortune drift through an open window. And beyond fluttering lace curtains, the wife ponders a tricky crossword as the children share space, shoulder to shoulder on the couch, each completely absorbed by some non-electronic form of entertainment; perhaps Jenga, a deck of cards or maybe even a book, if those even exist anymore.

And for every flower sprinkler out there, there are a half dozen or more tossing cups out their window in a parking lot, mean faced monsters screaming profanities across an interstate lane or mocking a strict teacher in front of their children. Harmony isn’t free and it isn’t cheap and it isn’t easy to find, which is why most Americans are of the belief it doesn’t exist.

Harmony doesn’t win Championships and it doesn’t help nail that interview. The power of harmony should never find itself in question however. Harmony is greater than the rush of a new speedboat and more welcoming than a vacation home, and yet for most of us it lingers in the shadows, just beyond our reach.

Rex the big Royal Blue Dinosaur doesn’t exactly exude harmony but he does win football games. Sunday was an unfortunate witch’s brew of Luck’s inability to perform in season openers, the energy of Rex Ryan’s first game as Buffalo Head Coach and a dash of Pagano’s teams always laying an egg once or twice a season.

As for front office chasms, if a rift between the Colts Head Coach and General Manager is only a myth, the good news is Jim Irsay will likely tweet about it just to let everyone know and, if a rift does in fact exist, the good news is Jim Irsay will likely tweet about it just to let everyone know.

Yet they say where there’s smoke, there’s likely fire. And anytime your performance is best compared to that of a team that has never played the sport before, there will always be questions. Questions like “Who taught the Colts’ secondary to tackle?” and “If Lincoln was so important, why did we put him on the least valuable coin?” And even Honest Abe, who boasts being the tallest president, would have been unable see what the end of this season will bring; though he probably could have done a better job tackling and fielding punts.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Harbaugh for President

First appeared on September 3rd, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

If Jim Harbaugh had been your First Grade teacher he would have told you to stop crying and get back to work. At recess he would have told everyone Billy can cross the Monkey Bars faster than you and at lunch he’d have made it perfectly clear trading your corn for another No Bake Cookie will only make you fat. His is a world devoid of Band-Aids and hugs.

And far away from the bright lights of Ann Arbor, a line forms before a weary coach, plastic smile pasted on. He shakes every hand of his little team, congratulating them on their 13-0 loss. Later, somewhere beyond left field, a Mini-Van Mom passes out juice boxes and treats she put together with love. Individual Ziplock baggies, each labeled in Sharpie because Tommee doesn’t like pretzels and Earin likes extra trail mix and don’t forget Mikel has a wheat allergy so he’ll most likely need a block of cheese or maybe a coloring book.

And as the little warriors inhale their snack, the coach mumbles something about growth and how proud he is of the effort they gave despite losing every game. All this before doling out the exact same trophy to everyone, including Rico who was the only kid to reach base or record an out or show any tangible signs of improvement all season.

If Jim Harbaugh were that Pee-Wee coach he would have told everyone to take a long hard look at Rico. “If you want to win games you need to work as hard as Rico. If you want to win games you’ll put down the game controller and play catch with your dad. And if you don’t have a dad, you’ll throw a ball off the roof of your house and catch it. And if you don’t have a house then you’ll ask one of the people living under the bridge with you to play catch.”

Jim Harbaugh would blast his team for losing. Blast them for not being better, not working hard enough. And he would do this because he knows every second grader in India and China wants to bury the U.S. and the more we hand out trophies and pat people on the back for losing, the faster it will happen. That’s why I’m asking Harbaugh to resign his position at Michigan and run for President.

What this country needs is more honesty. We need to be able to look others in the eye and tell them exactly how we feel and, when necessary, tell them maybe they can find a little room for improvement after all. And this includes everyone from your seven year old to the guy pretending to be a sports columnist in the local paper.

I’m no expert on motivation, just ask my wife, my boss, my parents or my kids. Still, it doesn’t take a professor boasting hours of research, countless articles published and dozens of agonizingly dry speeches given to recognize if you constantly tell someone how great they are, they tend to see no reason for improvement.

As President, Harbaugh would make loyalty, hard work and discipline the foundation of every child’s education. Anyone caught whining about political correctness or asking why their daughter only got one smiley face on her paper when Johnny got four would be given a pair of Dockers and a one way ticket to Siberia.

A history of demanding perfection and grinding on those around him will follow Harbaugh to Ann Arbor. And often, despite success, that history has a history of leading to his demise (see 49ers, San Francisco). So while Harbaugh appears ready for Ann Arbor, the million dollar question remains, is Ann Arbor ready for Harbaugh?

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams