Skyway Bowl High Sch(P)ool

His family moved from Huron, Ohio to Seattle when he was 15.

Renton High School, Renton, Washington

His father found had found work earlier. A few months later sent for the rest.

The "rest" including mother, anxious teenager and younger brother, boarded a Greyhound bus for a 70+ hour trip across the U.S.

They were going from a small town to a big city and he was scared.

The high school he was from had over 400 students.

The high school he would transfer to had over 4,000.
The freshman class alone had over 1,000 "boomers."

To him, the stately brick facade and tower on the new school was intimidating.

Much to his surprise he blended in pretty quick.

No one picked him out for good, or bad intentions.

After a few weeks, he tied up with a few and called them friends.

All were from similar low income backgrounds.

They had very little money but avoided crime... for no particular reason.

Some of them picked up a few bucks from odd jobs in the area.

When they did have money, they usually headed for Skyway Park Bowl.

The alley had a half-dozen pool tables and that was what drew them.

The Ohio youth was fascinated by the game and became an avid student.

He studied the geometry of table angles and the physics of "English" or ball spin.

He worked on the grip, the stroke, the tempo, 

The proper roughing and chalking the cue stick.

He practiced the best methods to break the rack of 15 balls.

He learned position pool and the art of thinking several shots ahead.

He loved the smooth texture of the stick and the felt table covering.

He loved the click of cue ball against object ball.

He loved the sound of a ball falling into a woven leather pocket.

Together, he and his pals made that place their place.

They got to know the night manager so well,

He would let them play free after midnight.

It was an all night establishment and they would often do just that...play all night.

The manager must have known he was keeping them off the streets and out of trouble.

Eventually, he would often hop on the bus to downtown Seattle.

There he would play small stakes 8-ball games at a buck a pop. 

The venues were historical (as in gone today) downtown Seattle spots. 

They included the venerable Ben Paris underground and the Club 211 (est. 1896). 

Both were sites of many high stakes games and championship matches.

In later years, he would occasionally come back to the game,

Playing a few racks with a handsome old 21 ounce Brunswick cue,

His wife of many years gave him before they were married.

A few shots and the memories would flood back.
(Fifty years later, he still has that stick in fine shape.)

Today he fondly mentions to anyone who seems to care...

That he majored in pool in High School.

You never forget something you love or have loved... 

A Band On Tour

Realizing that Julieann and I have been to far more concerts during my (ahem!) sixties than our entire previous lives... it would likely be a good thing to note what brought this about. As to why(?)... let's just say if your daughter or son had formed and was fronting two bands that were working hard and experiencing growing popularity you might feel the same.  Also, it doesn't hurt that we both like the music.  Our son writes songs with upbeat reggae and classic rock and roll overtones.  His other band does a Sublime tribute show.  

If you are not familiar with Sublime.. they were mainstream popular in the early 90's and enjoy cult status today.  Their run was cut short by the untimely heroin overdose death of Brad Nowell, lead singer/songwriter .  If you were to attend a Sublime Tribute concert today, you would be impressed with the variety, rhythm, and lyrics of their music.  You would be even more impressed with the number of fans who have basically memorized the lyrics to the songs and joyously shout them out as the band plays.

But then, this story is really about one adventure of a modern day group of troubadours with heart.  It is about a concert Julie and I are sorry to have missed.  Written by our son Tyler, it has been slightly edited for a PG rating and to protect the privacy of certain undeserving names:

May 22nd, 2009:  Started out as a relatively normal day on the tour... despite the debauchery from the night before which would be a worthy prelude to the story... another time.  We rose from the dead around 11:00am... just in time to use the hotel room for the first time simply to shower before our 11:30 checkout.  (Musicians are late for everything.)  

Around 12:30, we left Tacoma, Washington for a 3 hour journey south to Portland, Oregon where we had a show booked at The Blue Room.  At 4pm, we arrived at our destination and received a not so warm welcome from the manager.  Step one for a bar manager, be f**king nice to the touring musicians that come through your venue.  You may actually like their music and want them back... I digress.  

5:30pm... a friend from Portland picked us up and took us back to her place where we relaxed and ate dinner.  Matt stayed behind at the venue to do some work online.  At 7pm, I get a call from Matt, "Hey man, the dude here at the venue says that we are playing first tonight cause he owes some local band a favor and they are headlining... and btw, they can't pay us."  What the f**k... I'll be there in half an hour.  So at 7:30, we roll back into the venue parking lot determined to stir some s**t up.  We walk into the venue, straight up to the dude who booked the show and basically demanded an explanation.  (Imagine a retard f**king a football and you will share about the exact experience we went through talking to this guy.)  

I demand at least 30% of the door or we walk.  Btw, that is basically nothing in this business. Dude talks to his manager... no dice.  We walk.  8:00pm... driving basically aimlessly at this point.  With Matty behind the wheel, I yell at him to start looking for bars on the street.  The plan is to use the shock and awe method... drive the bus right up to the front door of any random bar and basically tell them we are playing there tonight.  We don't even get a chance to try that method.  

For ten minutes, I frantically call several different bars, "Hi... random question... do you have a band playing in your bar tonight?  No?  OK, this is Tyler with Anxiety Boy Management and I am driving down the street somewhere in Portland right now with 2 nationally touring bands. Basically we had a show fall through on us tonight and we are looking for a spot to play.  We will accept $200 or 15% of the bar sales for the evening."  Finally, I get a hold of some dude named Ed at a spot called The Refectory.  He's interested.  After a quick view of our websites, he calls back and it's on, except he has an event going on until 11pm at his place but he has a friend that owns a bar on the other side of town.  His friend is game for the surprise visit so we google Cactus Jack's and beeline.  9:45... we arrive at our venue for the evening.  

The place is small and full of locals... gawking at the giant tour bus parked 4 feet from their front door.  As quickly as we can, we unload our gear into the restaurant and set up.  Eddy is kind enough to loan us his pa system so we don't have to do sound... awesome.  11pm.. we start our set off with some good ol' Sublime Tribute.  We play for an hour switching back and forth from originals to Sublime.  

The crowd is small but rowdy and perhaps the most appreciative group we have seen on the tour.  We took a short break at midnight then played another hour til 1am.  At that point, we attempted to call it a night... no dice.  The crowd begging for more and we deliver.  At 1:30, we finally called it.  Had a pretty good set... about as good as it could have been while stuffed in the corner of a Mexican restaurant.  

During the set there was one individual in particular who stood out.  A weathered fellow with long stringy hair sat off the the left and had just a blast.  I remember thinking that the lady he was with was surprisingly hot for a dude of his... appearance.  But we meshed well with the guy all night, even hugging him at one point during the set.  He just kept yelling, "You guys rock!"  At the end of the night, I sat and talked with Jack, the owner of the club.  We settled up the tab, $200 for the evening of entertainment we had provided.  But at the other side of the room, the "weathered fellow" approached Jonny and asked if we accept tips.  "Of course!"  The gentleman laid a pile of cash on one of Jonny's symbols and told the guys once again what an awesome job we had done.  Then he disappeared into the night.  

A $300 tip... turns out the $140,000 Porsche in the parking lot was his... and he was a huge fan of us on this particular evening.  5 hours prior, we told a club just to go right ahead and f**k themselves and then we turned the night into $500.  

An epic tale... an epic win.  http://www.myspace.com/aproots  

 

Accommodations

We arrive in Seattle.

Straight to brothers to visit.

Check into Courtyard in the afternoon.

Accommodations.

She is cold.

I am hot.

She changes from sandals to shoes.

I change from shoes to sandals.

She is fine.

I am fine.

Accommodations.

Of another kind.

Dakota Five

"I'm gonna' be six."

Dakota Campbell,

son of Cynthia and David Claud William.

School: Kindergarden

Hobbies: Judo, Soccer, Baseball, Wii

Interests: Acting, Dancing, Music

Parents: Only the best will do and I have them.

Relationship: Yeah there's a girl and we have already discussed marriage. We'll wait on it a couple of years though and see how things go.

Favorite Jokes: We have a ton... my Dad and I make them up as we go.

Athletic Condition: Well, I can bust a move on the dance floor; cartwheels, spinning on my back and all, for well over a half an hour basically without stopping know what I mean?

Education: Not bad... my Uncle Tom told me he was the first President. I told him he was wrong, that the first President was Washington. Then I told him he was President Zero.

Other Activities: My Mom kisses me a lot. I am a pretty affectionate person though so it doesn't bother me like you might think.

Faces: I've got a million of them. That's why I think I can act. If I decide to be famous when I grow up and I work hard at it, My Uncle Tom and Aunt Julie are pretty convinced I will make it.

Moves: My favorite when I am hamming it up is the "two-finger pistol, head nod with a cheese-eating grin" toward the person I am aiming at. It is a classic that tells the other person he or she is cool... and I am too!

My looks: Blue-eyed half pint towhead with muscles.

My Story: It's just beginning!

August Company

Dateline: Hell's Kitchen, Tacoma Washington, Friday May 22nd, 2009.

Arden Park Roots and their evil alter ego, The Livin's Easy (Sublime Tribute) 

Perform on a fine stage in a bar for the ages.

The crowd includes several dignitaries,

Notably the Mother of the front man.

The bands are high energy

And so is the crowd.

Next month at the Kitchen

It's the King of Surf Guitar,

Dick Dale.

August Company.

Jogging My Memory

A life-altering moment in the early 90's

Caused him to quit smoking

He was lucky

Since early teens

It had him securely

In its grasp

Then it happened

And he realized

It was time to stop

As part of rehab he walked

Then he jogged

Then he did four Eppies Great Races ("The World's Oldest Triathlon")

Then he did two Tower to the original Tower half-marathons 

(Sponsored by the once famous record stores)

Then he did two Chevy's to Chevy's half marathons

In between, he travelled as part of his job

Everywhere he went, he would ask locals what the most popular jogging routes were

Sometimes he simply jogged the heart of major cities

early in the morning

before the cities woke

and beaches whenever there was one near...

• In New Orleans - St Charles Avenue from downtown to and through the beautiful, amazing grand old lady Audubon Park.
• In Atlanta - A dry run for the famous Peachtree 10K from Buckhead to the City and on the Chattahoochee River Trail. 
• In Austin -  the great Town Lake Trail - a country setting right downtown along both sides of the river with pedestrian bridges crossing
• In Reno - right down Virginia street, early in the morning when it was closed to traffic during Street Vibrations bike week
• In San Diego - on the beach of one of the most beautiful islands (Coronado) on the planet
• In Santa Cruz - a great long,  flat, hard beach perfect for jogging barefoot
• In Monterrey - along the beach and through the town
• In San Francisco - through Chinatown and the square among those practicing Tai-Chi in the Transamerica Redwood Park at the break of dawn; along the Embarcadero past the wharfs, up the hills
• In Washington D.C. - the five mile Capital Mall loop from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capital steps and back and yes, he did the Rocky thing on the steps of our nation's Capital building and yes, he was blessed to be able do it during cherry blossom time in Spring
• In Little Rock - through the downtown streets where the city seemed to be dying 
• In Baton Rouge - around the gorgeous campus of LSU
• In Los Angeles - among the skyscrapers a world in its own
• In Cancun - on the beautiful beach lined with magnificent hotels
• In Miami - on South Beach and on a path around golf's famous Doral Country Club
• In Louisville - on a bridge across the Missouri River from one state to the other and back
• In the Black Hills - on trails to Lake Pactola and into Rapid City along Rapid Creek
• In Sacramento - most of all in Sacramento along the beautiful American River and through the postcard settings of Arden Park.

They say as you begin to jog certain distances with a certain frequency you will experience the "runner's high" when the endorphins kick in and you have absolutely no desire to be anywhere else, doing anything else.  He was there often... for years and he gratefully agrees.  Now he spins the elliptical machine in deference to a gimp hip but he remembers. Look for him.  He is still on the trails and in the cities throughout the greatest country on earth.  

Universal Health Care - A Primer. Or Not?

Paragraph Won:

Among most, though certainly not all, informed citizens (both sworn and natural born), of the United States of America, it is not widely known that theirs is the only wealthy (although some would argue not lately), industrialized country that has not enacted a form of nationalized health insurance intended to provide basic forms of necessary care for all inhabitants who are in need; and there is a question when, if ever, it will occur as there are many powerful players palavering painfully and persistently including those with existing health conditions, older people, insurance companies, small businesses, workers, drug companies, big businesses, hospitals and doctors… all of whom have been jockeying for influential positions and clashing in demands to shape the system since at least the 1970’s and likely earlier because they all know that England enacted it in the 1940’s over the objections of those who argued health care is not a right but something to be earned along with one’s daily bread that has been artfully kneaded, patted and baked into brown perfection that can only be enhanced by a large patty of butter and perhaps a little strawberry jam accompanied by an ice cold glass of milk.

Paragraph Too:

Listen to me...  Universal Health Insurance will never happen!

Credits:

Avedis Donabedian -  health care quality assurance guru for inspiring the glaring absence of a period until the end of Paragraph Won.  I was forced to study the Big A in grad school and stumbled on a 71 word sentence he wrote that was totally beyond my comprehension.   There are almost 200 words in Paragraph (sentence) Won.  Top that Big A!

Ayn Rand - who refused to begin new paragraphs for the common man's enlightenment. Instead, she pushed the envelope, writing page after page after page in long hand without beginning anew.  She must have been trying to conserve paper... and trying to drive her typist nuts!

My college professors -  who unanimously agreed that the more complex the thought, the more run on the sentence, the smaller the font and the more obscure the writing, the better to make all their sleazy students suffer for having more fun at the bars than they.

 

A Death... In The Family

Sparkle Plenty was the daughter of B.O. and Gravel Plenty, all characters in the Dick Tracy comic series. Sparkle Plenty was also the name of my first dog. She was a cocker spaniel... a present for my 7th birthday.  My Dad had asked me to retrieve his coat left in his car and when I did so, I discovered a ball of fur wrapped in it.

When our son Tyler Thomas Campbell turned 7, I asked him to retrieve my coat from our car out front and he discovered a ball of fur wrapped in it. The puppy would be named Sparkle Plenty II, a Schnauzer who would be part of our family for fifteen years.

As Tyler and Sparkle grew, they remained close pals.  Over time, Tyler's attention was drawn to the complications of growing up and Sparkle became closer to the one who was with her most from day to day, Tyler's Mother Julieann.  In later years Sparkle and Julieann became somewhat inseparable in our home with "Spark-bark" following in Julie's footsteps throughout the day and night.

When our daughter Samantha turned 10, I came in the house and asked her to go get a towel I had accidentally left in our car.  She discovered a ball of fur wrapped in that towel.  It was a Golden Retriever puppy who would later be named Molly.  Molly would be Sparkle's pal and reluctant playmate for the next several years.  Sparkle was quite a bit older and didn't care much for playing around with the little frisky one who had moved into her territory without an invitation. 

By the time she turned 15, Sparkle was suffering from fairly typical canine infirmities.  With failing eyesight, one day while alone in the back yard she accidentally fell into our swimming pool .  She could swim but had never figured out how to find the steps at the end of the pool and had always needed to be helped out. That day help wasn't there.

We buried Sparkle Plenty in the back yard under a beautiful oak tree.  Tyler and I dug the hole while Julieann held her.  Samantha ran to her room and wrote some last words for Sparkle.  She came back and read the words for us as Tyler and I gently laid Sparkle in her last bed.  Then Samantha went back to her room and got a ceramic cross her Grandmother had given her.  That day she passed the cross on to Sparkle and it now hangs on our back fence overlooking Sparkle's bed.

Some people say dogs can't go to heaven because they don't have souls.  If you have ever looked into the eyes of a dog who loves you, you have seen an unconditional commitment that will never end.  Once you have seen that you would argue that it doesn't matter whether dogs have souls or not... they are definitely in heaven.  They are all there; Sparkle Plenty (Spaniel), Bingo (Black & Tan), Lady (Beagle), Mopsie's Coup d'Camp (Old English Sheepdog), Gypsy(Old English Sheepdog) and Sparkle Plenty II (Schnauzer).  They are hoping Molly and the rest of us conduct ourselves properly and thus qualify to join them someday. 

(Photos first to last: Tyler Thomas Campbell and Sparkle Plenty II, Molly and Sparkle Plenty II, Sparkle Plenty II part timing as a famous Seattle Seahawk.)