1.3.2024 – nailed a pull shot while

nailed a pull shot while
fall over backwards, slog-swept
medium pace for six

Seems forever since I had a haiku based on cricket but the article, Rishabh Pant blast rocks Australia on 15-wicket day to keep India’s hopes alive, was too good to pass up.

This passage caught my eye:

Missing a reverse ramp third ball, he carried on with a series of airborne boundaries through midwicket, cover and down the ground. He nailed a pull shot while falling over backwards, slog-swept Webster’s medium pace for six, then did the same twice in a row off the far more express Starc, in the process passing 50 from 29 balls. The only faster half-century for India was – hard to believe, of course – by Pant.

Writing about cricket in Australian.

Is that a double blind?

1.2.2024 – boats nets lying off

boats nets lying off
off the sea-beach, quite still, boats
separate, row off

TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,
Ten fishermen waiting—they discover a thick school of moss-
bonkers—they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water,
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to
the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers,
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand ankle-
deep in the water, pois’d on strong legs,
The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them,
Strew’d on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the
water, the green-back’d spotted mossbonkers.

A Paumanok Picture by Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass (Boston, Thayer and Eldridge, 1860).

A Hilton Head Picture by Mike Hoffman

1.1.2025 – meaningless for them

meaningless for them and
meaningless for us – this is
just fairytale stuff

“That’s the only way we know. It’s just go and find a way to win,” Goff said. “This is what ended our season last year. There’s a lot of guys on this team that were there last year that wanted to get one back on them even though in a lot of ways it was meaningless for them and it was meaningless for us.”

The stakes for this game were miniscule compared to the last meeting between the teams when a berth in the Super Bowl was on the line last January.

San Francisco was eliminated from playoff contention last week and Detroit plays Minnesota in the regular-season finale next week, with the winner earning the NFC North title and top seed in the NFC playoffs, and the loser relegated to being the first 14-win wild-card team in NFL history.

“This is just fairytale stuff,” Campbell said.

Had the Vikings lost on Sunday, Detroit could have clinched the division and No 1 seed on Monday night. But now the win against the 49ers would only matter if Detroit and Minnesota tie in Week 18, with the Lions now set to earn the No 1 seed in that unlikely scenario.

Campbell said he considered resting some starters but decided it would be unfair to the backups who hadn’t prepared and the starters who still would have had to play. It all worked out, with the Lions getting the win and coming out healthy.

“I ended up settling on the right thing to do was playing those guys,” he said. “We owed it to the team. … That was tough. I think the biggest thing is there was things we wanted to do better than we did last week, and we did.”

Dan Campbell, Head Coach of the Detroit Lions on beating the San Francisco 49ers as told in the article, Goff and Lions see off 49ers 40-34 in tune-up for Week 18 showdown.

12.31.2024 – aptly remarked if …

aptly remarked if
he could have been here today …
he wouldn’t have been here

At the funeral for E.B. White, his step son, Roger Angell is reported to have … aptly remarked that … “If he could have been here today, he wouldn’t have been here.”

So ends 2024.

A lot happened.

A lot had to happened to have things happen.

I got a new grand daughter.

I read a lot.

I turned 64.

And here I sit, in the low country of South Carolina.

The fireworks are starting and will boom and bang for the next 6 hours.

I am here today!

Would I have been here today if I could have been somewhere else?

12.30.2024 – in your guts you know …

in your guts you know …
he’s nuts made rosalynn laugh – they
still got the last laugh

Back in 2016, my wife and I took a side trip out from Atlanta and visited Plains, Georgia and it was very plain.

And very plainly the birthplace and current home of President Jimmy Carter.

There was one very odd souvenir store that featured years … no, decades … of political memorabilia.

I was able to pick up a button from 1976 Ford vs. Carter but my wife was attracted to an anti Trump button that proclaimed, “IN YOUR GUTS YOU KNOW HE’S NUTS” with a picture of the Donald.

The odd guy who owned and ran the place maintained a running conversation with us the entire time we were in there.

When we got up to the cash register he looked at my wife’s button and laughed.

“The Carter’s were in here last week,” he said, “That one made Rosalynn laugh.”

Mr. Carter died yesterday at age 100.

That Mr. Carter did not like Mr. Trump is well known.

That Mr. Carter expressed a desire to live long enough to vote against Mr. Trump is also well known.

With his passing yesterday, all flags will be at half staff for the next 30 days which includes the January 20th inauguration day of Mr. Trump.

Beyond the grave, Mr. Carter gets the last laugh.

I think Rosalynn would have laughed at that.