Chloe graduates, life goes on

If everything went according to plan, my daughter Chloe graduated from high school last night.

I say "if everything went according to plan" because I'm writing this in mid-April and, you know, lots of things could happen between now and the time you're reading this that would prevent Chloe from receiving her diploma.

Murder, for instance. Chloe may commit murder in the next few weeks and be locked away for life well before commencement.

One time Chloe drew up a list (this is absolutely true) that she posted on our refrigerator headlined "People Who Won't Die When I Get a Sword." I was relieved that my name appeared on the list, but I genuinely felt for those who were excluded. They should watch their backs once Chloe gets her hands on a sword.

Because that's the thing with Chloe, you see. She's like Mike Tyson in that absolutely anything you hear about her, no matter how off the wall, could possibly be true.

She has always been a little bit crazy. And by "crazy," I simultaneously mean both "endearingly quirky" and "frighteningly unbalanced." It's one of the many things I love about her, and I believe it's a primary reason she has accomplished so much thus far in her young life.

Chloe is intensely self-motivated in the way only the most talented eccentrics can be. Whatever she sets her mind to, she does. And she does it well. Soccer, music, academics, lopping people's heads off. Whatever it is, Chloe is driven to be the best.

One result is that – again, if everything went according to plan and she avoided any sort of legal entanglement – Chloe had the honor of giving a speech at last night's graduation ceremony as the Salutatorian of her class. Her academic achievements earned her a complete scholarship to the University of Akron, where God willing she will study biomedical engineering beginning this fall.

I shouldn't call it a "complete" scholarship because I think we still have to pay for books. But saying that is really looking a gift horse in the mouth, since the scholarship covers four full years' worth of tuition and room and board. As a father of five children, I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that particular blessing.

She was also named the Most Valuable Player on her high school soccer team last fall based almost solely on a strong left foot and the ability to run seemingly forever and ever. She was never the fastest or most athletic person on that team, but she excelled through sheer force of will.

Which is how I expect she'll also succeed in life. When Chloe wants something, she's not to be denied, regardless of what natural tools or gifts she may or may not have. She wants it, she'll have it, she gets it. Maybe not every time, but close to it.

But you know what? While that's all well and good, and it largely describes who Chloe is, it neglects the fact that she also has an immense capacity to love. Her heart is bigger than even the Grinch's was when it grew three sizes in one day. She is passionate and she is loyal, and those are qualities I will always admire in her.

So working under the assumption that Wickliffe High School did indeed last night confer upon Chloe a piece of paper making her an official high school graduate, we hit another milestone in our family. We're not the first, and we won't be the last, but it does mean that we've gotten 40% of our children through the Wickliffe school system. Two down, three to go.

Congratulations, Chloe. You deserve all of the wonderful things people have said about you over the past few weeks, and I know you'll earn many more compliments along the way. I hope you know how much I love you, not only because I'm your father, but also because I want to stay on that list of people who are safe from your sword...

This isn't a post about baseball, it's a post about me being an emerging curmudgeon

According to this article from The New York Times, fewer and fewer people score baseball games by hand anymore.

The funny thing is, many reading this post have no idea what the phrase "score baseball games by hand" means.

For the uninitiated, one scores a baseball game by recording the result of every at-bat on a cardboard scorecard. Or at least they used to be cardboard back (say it with me) IN MY DAY.

There's a whole intricate system involved in scoring, the idea being that afterward you can relive the game by following the symbols and abbreviations that represent runs, hits, errors, strikeouts, fly outs, ground outs, line outs, and every other possible outcome.

One might justifiably ask why one would want to relive a baseball game one has already watched in person.

And I have no good answer.

Other than when I used to be a sports writer, I don't think I've ever gone back and retraced a baseball game solely by reviewing a scorecard. The real value of doing it, I always thought, was to really immerse and engage yourself in the game as it unfolds.

I learned to keep score from my dad. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is the only good way to learn. It's a skill that must be learned from your father.

I taught Jared to do it a few years ago, though it isn't something he has practiced much, so he's probably a little rusty. But given a scorecard and a pencil, he could get by.

Anyway, like I said in the headline, this isn't a post about baseball. This is a post about me lamenting the slow death of yet another great American tradition.

I generally get bored when people talk about sinking moral values and the fall of Western Civilization as represented by the loss of some old-fashioned habit or pastime.

Yet here I am doing exactly that. Guilty of hypocrisy as charged, your honor.

I guess the fact that most people don't keep score anymore shouldn't have much of an effect on me. If I want to do it myself, I still can.

But finding fewer and fewer people in the stands with their scorecards brings home to me the reality of baseball's declining popularity. It used to be the American Sport. Now it's largely The Old Person's Sport.

Baseball is slow. Or at least it's slow compared to football, basketball and hockey. It's a game of strategy and thought. Yes, a certain amount of pandering and posturing has infected baseball in recent years, but for the most part, it's still a very 19th- and 20th-century game.

I love all sports, don't get me wrong. But to quote Mike Tyson, if baseball "fades into Bolivian," it will mean a large part of our culture has gone out with it.

And I'm pretty sure I hate that. Or at least I dislike it intensely, which is just about all the emotion I can muster these days.

Is this what it's like to get old? First your music goes out of style. Then the clothes you wear. Then the people you saw as vibrant adults growing up start to go away. Then it starts happening to your generation.

Somewhere in there is also the decline and fall of the things you thought were eternal. Like baseball.

Your own mortality looks you square in the face and laughs.

And the only way you know to fight back is to grab a scorecard and a pencil and take in a ball game on a warm summer afternoon.

Just remember, it's a backwards "K" when the batter strikes out looking. A regular "K" when he goes down swinging. The rest is pretty easy to figure out.

10 things I miss from the 1980s

(1) Parachute Pants
I never wore them myself. But I liked the fact they even existed. Here's a photo:

How many times in the 80s did I say to myself, "It would be perfect if I had a zippered pocket just above my right knee to carry this object around, but darn it, these stupid Bugle Boy jeans just don't offer what I need!" (The answer, by the way, is zero. I never said that to myself. Nor did any other sane person. By the way, nice white socks, Mr. Model.)


(2) The Music
You actually can't classify every piece of popular music released from 1980 through 1989 as "80s Music," because it's all so different. (The same is probably true for any decade.) There was late-era disco, New Wave, hair metal, second-generation punk, etc. I liked almost all of it.


(3) The Hair
We rocked us some pretty rad hair in the 80s. Most guys I knew favored the parted-in-the-middle-and-feathered-back style. Early in the decade, girls used their curling irons to dangerous extremes. Later in the decade, they just teased up their 'do to record heights. Then there was the Flock of Seagulls guy:

That's Mike Score. He's bald now. So it goes...


(4) The Blatant Disregard for Anything But Making Money
This is not the most socially redeeming feature of the decade, but it was pretty funny to watch. No one even tried to pretend they had anything resembling altruistic motives (see Gecko, Gordon).


(5) The Ties
For whatever reason, we in the 80s decided that neckties should be no more than about 2 inches across. Which isn't necessarily a bad look. Except if you take it in this direction:

In which case, it probably doesn't work. (I also never liked tying those things. I like the appearance of a wide-tie knot much better. I was either ahead of or behind my time, depending on how you look at it.)


(6) Young Mike Tyson
Before the prison term. And the ear biting. And the face tattoo. Before all of that, there was just Iron Mike. And he was fearsome, both as a boxer and as a human being. Will Smith even did a five-minute rap about him that white people loved. Mike not only beat people, he destroyed them.

I miss that Mike. He was fun to watch. As long as you weren't the poor guy he was punching in the head.

(7) 80s Malls

There are still malls, of course, but they're different now. 80s malls had their own hip aura. They were the place to be, socially. And they had Chess King. And Spencer's Gifts back before it got scary. And Orange Julius (it was required by law in the 80s that all malls must have at least one Orange Julius store.) My daughter works in a mall now and I don't enjoy going there nearly as much as I used to. Maybe because malls also lost their bookstores. I could spend hours in a mall bookstore.

(8) David Hasselhoff

The Hoff is still around, I know. But he doesn't look like this anymore:

Simply put to all of you kids out there, our Hoff was way better than your Hoff.

(9) The Commodore 64

The Commodore was my first computer. I got it for Christmas 1983. In the following five years, I amassed an impressive collection of pirated software. And I met a kid online who, weeks after my friend Kevin and I went to his house, was arrested for running some sort of credit card scam using his Commodore. Cyber crime didn't originate in 2002!

I'm including a picture of a Commodore 64 only because it makes me happy just to look at it:

(10) Having This Much Hair