Former ND Kicker Harry Oliver Passes Away

There are certain moments when you remember exactly where you were at that moment. 9/11 and the Challenger explosion are the two biggies for my generation: I was sitting in my living room, late for work, when I heard about 9/11, and I was in our high school library after lunch when the Challenger exploded.

Another one I remember vividly is when Notre Dame beat Michigan in 1980. ND was down to Michigan 27-26 with something like two seconds on the clock. I was sitting in our car in the Kroger parking lot in Alma, MI because my folks had gone in to Kroger shopping and I wanted to listen to the Mutual Radio broadcast of the game.

Yeah, I know... even when I was only 11. Ask my friends, I was annoying back then, too.

Anyway, the Irish were going for a 51-yard field goal against the wind, and this little kicker named Harry Oliver was taking the kick. Miraculously, the wind stopped just as the kick was taken... it was up and it was good. I jumped out of the car and was running around it in the parking lot... my dad was so excited when he got back in the car and I told him... finally, something to stick in the faces of all the U of M fans in his office.

Anyway, Harry Oliver passed away yesterday in Cincinnati, where he was living and had spent the last two years battling cancer. Harry, thank you so much for a little slice of happiness and decades of nostalgia.

Here's the kick as described by Tony Roberts of the Notre Dame Football Radio Network:



And just for fun (well, my fun) here's U of M's Bob Ufer with the same call (he's so distraught he can't even get the score right until the third try):

RIP: Tommy Makem

As much as many of them cringe to hear it, the music of most children's memory is that stuff their parents listened to during their early years. For me, that consists of lots of Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach... and Tommy Makem. My dad is a bit tone-deaf due to a bad ear infection he had as a kid, and he always gravitates to lyrical music over instrumental because of that. And one band he loved dearly was the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

So I grew up listening to them - and when I was old enough I actually bought a couple of their albums myself. Tommy Makem is the consummate musician - passionate, respectful of those who've come before him and appreciative of those who've come after him, and humble about his skill and fame. He has a golden voice (golden as a dram of Irish Whiskey) and a wonderful presence about him, that makes you feel as if you're having a conversation with him as he sings or talks about his music.

Tommy died yesterday, but he'll never be missed. This weekend's Dublin Irish Festival will be a bit sadder for the loss of one so great, but in typical Irish fashion I'd imagine that this is going to be one heck of an Irish wake!

My Best Halloween Costume Was...

Following my wife's lead on this one:

As a kid, I had a great number of fantastic costumes. My folks liked to help me put together good costumes. I suppose the best one I had was when I was a Gaul (a la Asterix the Gaul) - with a horned helmet, breastplate, round shield, sword, furry tunic, the whole nine yards. Looked sharp.

As an adult, I've put together some interesting ones - including the Shadow and the Crow, but probably my most innovative idea was when I was I-270 - the outerbelt for Columbus. From head to toe, it was a construction helmet, black shirt and pants with lane divider lines in tape on my arms and legs, a cardboard "Orange Barrel," and an interstate logo on my front and back. I was the scariest costume at the party. :)

Childhood Is Fleeting

Last night I disassembled my son's infancy and put it in the basement. I brought his childhood upstairs and assembled it in his room.

Okay, actually, I took apart his crib and brought in his toddler bed. But that's not how it seems.

Anyone who knows me knows how nostalgic and sentimental I can get. So last night, when I was putting away Duncan's crib, I was feeling a sort of loss. I have absolutely no regrets with him, so don't get me wrong. But I'm going to miss all the fun he had in that crib. I loved to come into his room when he was awake and playing in his crib, hide behind its headboard, and then peek around the corner through the railing and watch him till he noticed me. Then he'd hop up and look over the headboard with his usual enormous smile.

Or you'd put him down for the evening and go back downstairs, and then for whatever reason you had to come back upstairs for something. And no matter how quiet you'd try to be, he'd hear you, and you'd start to head back downstairs and see him staring at you over the headboard, and he'd quietly smile and say "Hi."

But even more than that, that crib is a symbol of so much about him - in fact, if you think about it, it's a symbol of all I know about him. He's always been my baby boy, and I have a picture of him on the first day we put took him from his bassinet and put him into his crib. I'll always remember him struggling to pick his head up, trying to crawl, learning the "E-I-E-I-O" part of "Old McDonald Had A Farm" before he learned anything else, and most of all the smiles that he always had for Jenn and I when we came in to get him from his crib.

Tonight, we'll get a picture of him from his first night in his new toddler bed. And we'll start a whole new section of his life - the childhood years. I can't wait, and I wish they never had to come.

Katrina Aftermath Has Own Sense Of Self

One of the things I truly love about the human race is their ability to take the worst that the world can hand out to them and make fun.

Take the above example: using Katrina as an adjective... particularly the term "Katrina Patina." Great fun poked at a horrible situation.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the folks affected by Katrina holding on to those items with the Katrina Patina and passing them down to their kids/grandkids, with stories about how they and their families pulled through the storm and its aftermath and made New Orleans and the Gulf Coast fantastic places to live again.

Given the "help" they've had so far, I only hope they can.