Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Me and Marcus Dupree

Having seen ESPN’s “The Best That Never Was,” I now realize that Marcus Dupree and I were amazingly similar football players.

I don’t mean in the superficial, obvious sense. He was 6-foot-3, 225 pounds. I was not.

He ran a 9.5 hundred. I did not.

He rushed for 7,355 yards with an 8.3-yards-per-carry average in his high school career and scored 87 touchdowns. I did not.

He was considered the best high school player in the country – perhaps of all time - and was relentlessly recruited by every major and not-so-major college in the country to wear their uniform and score touchdowns for them.

Again, I was not.

But after one notable season playing for the Oklahoma Sooners (including a Fiesta Bowl record 249 yards) and a few games into the next, Marcus decided he had had enough. It isn’t fun anymore, he explained, and he quit, not quite in that order.

Just like me! For exactly the same reason!

My decision came a bit earlier in life, after my junior year in high school. And unlike Marcus’s, it wasn’t precipitated by a concussion that left me woozily wondering where I was, and what I was doing there. But I imagine the thought process to have been identical:

Not fun + hard work + pain = Outta here.

Of course, having been blessed with an abundant lack of God-given talent, I did not face the repercussions Marcus did. Network news shows did not take note of my choice. And, unlike him, I did not go on to play in the USFL, tear up my knee, attempt a comeback five years later and manage to last a few games over a couple of seasons with the Los Angeles Rams.

Still. We are brothers under the skin.

Some things in life have to be done whether they are fun or not. Some things do not. The trick is to be able to tell the difference and, for those things that do not have to be done, not to do them.

I still try to live by that rule. And I hope Marcus does, too.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Old Times, Not Forgotten

I’ve been visiting with an old friend. It’s nice to renew the relationship.

The friend is Robin Mather, and we haven’t visited in person, exactly. I’ve been reading her new book, “The Feast Nearby.” The subtitle, “How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally (all on $40 a week),” provides a pretty clear description of what Robin’s been up to lately.

Our lives overlapped for a few years back in the 1980s when we both worked for the newspaper in Jackson, Miss. She wrote about food, I wrote about pretty much whatever. We judged chili competitions together, red beans and rice competitions, beer competitions. (Guess which one I conceived and organized.)

Her book is a reminder of the gentle way she has with words, and her affection for food, not just as fuel for the body, but as restorative for the spirit.

I remember in particular a meal of hers, after a long night of election coverage and post-election revelry for the newspaper staff. As she prepared and cooked it, she spoke of the soul-warming experience of being able to provide someone with sustenance.

At the time, my culinary ability consisted primarily of opening cans, and heating the contents.

But the sentiment stayed with me. Bit by bit, I expanded my range. And some years later I did chicken breasts, herbed pasta and ratatouille for a Valentine’s Day dinner. Not haute cuisine, but enough to surprise – and impress - my date.

Robin’s book is a treasure. It almost made me want to move to a cabin on a lake in the Michigan woods, adopt a dog, a kitten and an African gray parrot, and spend a winter around a heating stove while canning vegetables.

At the least, I will try some of her recipes, which I now feel confident enough to tackle. I’ll share them with that Valentine’s Day date, who is now my wife. And who I still try to surprise from time to time.