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Memorial Day Weekend Musings
Memorial Day Weekend Musings
Published by Swampy Meadows
05-27-2022
Memorial Day Weekend Musings

BEVERLY HILLS (MI) – Nobody asked me, but…

– Roger Angell, America’s preeminent baseball essayist and longtime writer and editor for New Yorker magazine died recently at the age of 101. While best known for works like The Summer Game, this retrospective on his life and the looming prospect of death entitled This Old Man is perhaps his most compelling piece:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/old-man-3

– Over the years, I have played early morning pickup hoops with a lot of good athletes on our yearly summer sojourns to Stone Harbor, NJ. 6’10” (and a self-reported 410 lb.) Charlie Naddaff who played against Ralph Sampson while at LaSalle was certainly memorable. Elena Delle Donne, the consensus First Team HS All-American who ditched UConn to play for her home state Delaware Blue Hens was another. But the fastest player I encountered in all the years of hooping there was Charles Lee, who was then attending Bucknell. And now he’s interviewing for the Lakers HC job:

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2022/05/...arles-lee.html

Note: Charles didn’t get the Lakers job; Darvin Ham did.

– In Googling Charlie Naddaff’s name to get the correct spelling I came across this article from The Philadelphia Enquirer on the pickup games at 96th Street:

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news...e=app-web-view

It appears Naddaff has dropped over 100 pounds and is now a “svelte” 275. His son Chip and daughter Kathleen were regular fixtures every summer and both played college ball.

I’ll be there Labor Day weekend.

– The first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi that just dropped on Disney+ are among those rare cinematographic productions that are actually better than their hype.

– Where were all these golf balls when I really needed them? As a youngster I never had enuf and lost ones were nearly impossible to find. Now, when I have more spheroids than I could ever possibly use, I keep encountering them in the woods, near water hazards, heck sometimes right out in the open. Go figure.

– One of the adjustments that comes with retirement is the role that an automobile plays in your everyday life. While working in advertising sales it was not unusual for me to rack up 18,000-20,000 miles in a year. Now it’s more like 3,000 per. I use my 2004 retro Thunderbird to run errands, drive to and from the golf course and to visit our favorite ice cream stand. It’s insured with a collector car company, so my premium is less than half of what it used to be.

– Another advantage to being an old duffer: a free Y membership. My wife and I had canceled ours when Covid hit and hadn’t been back. Blue Cross and Blue Shield thru Silver Sneakers offers to pick up the tab for a health club for seniors. I’m not quite ready to go back to playing lunchtime pickup ball just yet, so I am hitting the gym at 7:00 am a coupla times a week to help restore my wind and shooting touch.

– A recent drive thru the UD campus made me realize that this is not the same university that my wife and I attended. I lived at University Hall on West Campus and took a five mile ride on a blue school bus to get to classes. Freshmen guys had to take ROTC. The basketball team played their games in the Fieldhouse and students had to wait outside all night for tickets. I played hoops in the Women's Gym, if you can believe that. NCR was thriving across Brown Street in a space now being built up by the U. The Montgomery County Fair was held around Labor Day every year at the Fairgrounds, also in space that now belongs to the university and which it hopes to develop.

What can I say…we’re a coupla Golden Flyers. A lot has changed in 50 years.

– On my initial visit to Dayton back in 1967, I had my very first Arby’s roast beef sandwich down on Brown Street. It cost 69 cents (which was a lot considering a burger at Mickey D’s was 22 cents) and it was a revelation. We didn’t have Arby’s in my dinky little town back in Massachusetts.

– I grew up in exurban Boston around a bunch of guys of Italian descent. One of their favorite all-purpose cuss words was “minchia” and I never learned exactly what it meant or how it was correctly spelled.

Now I know.

— If the Transfer Portal has taught us anything it is that the majority of recruitable HS hoopsters initially “outkicked their coverage” to use football terminology. Most players are moving down in conference and some even in division. While guys now have total freedom of movement, that ain’t necessarily always a good thing.

– I don’t understand crypto currency at all and I am perfectly blissful in my ignorance, especially in light of the recent apocalyptic crypto crash.

– Is finding a bay leaf in your dish a sign of good luck in your family? I Googled it and most people said yes, but there were a few nopes as well. I recently uncovered two bay leaves in my bowl at, of all places, Chipotle. Guess that means I’ve got some double secret good luck coming my way or something.

– A 2017 Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta with only 161 miles on it sold for $5,360,000 on Bring a Trailer recently:

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/20...errari-aperta/

That’s almost twice the sticker price when new. This raises a few questions: Why would you own a hypercar like that and only put 32 miles per year on it? More importantly, who has $5.3 mil in cash just lying around to buy it?

And while the normal admonition on most websites is “don’t read the comments!” I highly recommend that you do so in this case. The running commentary during the live auctions is what makes BaT so cool.

“FTS” used to run an infrequent mailbag column featuring reader feedback, but I haven’t done one in quite a while. In searching thru my saved mail, I came across a few worth sharing. This one is from former Flyer hoopster Don Hughes:

Swampy. Love your positiveness. Great to hear about the future opportunity.

Fun to watch the Flyers last weekend in DC.

Fellow Flyer

Don Hughes
‘87 #34

Thanks for writing, Don!

Frank Carchedi asked:

I may have missed it but do we have insight as to why the Flyers are not on TV outside of the more prominent nationally televised games?

Thanks for any insights

Frank


I told Frank that it mostly has to do with the level of competition the Flyers face in their buy games.

This one is from fellow UH resident Frank Floriani:

Hi Swampy,

I hope all is well with you and your family. As I have mentioned before, I really look forward to your articles.

The reason for this email is that tomorrow is the 50 year anniversary of Duane Allman’s death. I remember that day and going up to the radio station where I spoke with Steve Downes (who I am sure does not remember me) and we spoke about what a tragedy it was. (Many don’t realize that although he had played guitar for a while he was only into his third year playing the slide guitar. I was and still am a big fan.) If I recall correctly, Steve was your roommate. If you happen to be in touch with him please tell him that my conversation with him that day was one of those moments that I will always remember and appreciate.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Frank

p.s. I could swear that in the year or 2 after UH I saw Steve front a band in the basement of someone’s house in the ghetto. I could be wrong on that (and my memory tells me it was a Creedence song they were playing).
Any way please stay well and no matter what- GO FLYERS!


I forwarded Frank’s email to Downes and I’m sure he got a kick out of it. And yes, Steve did front a band (whose name escapes me) while at UD. They played in the KU Cafeteria for the first time and the infamous MC5 tune “Kick Out The Jams” was on their set list. It began with the admonition “Kick out the jams, motherf*ckers!” Downes and company wisely edited that to “brothers and sisters,” (which is what the radio play version used), it being a Catholic university and all.

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com
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  #1  
By Hyde Park Flyer on 05-27-2022, 05:33 PM
Credence. My recently turned 18 year old loves him some Creedence. He starts at Miami in the Fall. I wonder if he’ll happen upon others still jamming Creedence in their dorm rooms or on a quad. I hope so.
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  #2  
By Hyde Park Flyer on 05-27-2022, 05:34 PM
Creedence, not Credence. Wary eyes and stubborn thumbs are a bad combination.
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  #3  
By GoFlyer on 05-27-2022, 08:46 PM
" A recent drive thru the UD campus made me realize that this is not the same university that my wife and I attended. I lived at University Hall on West Campus and took a five mile ride on a blue school bus to get to classes. Freshmen guys had to take ROTC. The basketball team played their games in the Fieldhouse and students had to wait outside all night for tickets. I played hoops in the Women's Gym, if you can believe that. NCR was thriving across Brown Street in a space now being built up by the U. The Montgomery County Fair was held around Labor Day every year at the Fairgrounds, also in space that now belongs to the university and which it hopes to develop."

And the Kettering Student Center was brand new, The pain of Kennedy's assassination was still raw, women had to wear skirts except for the lower level and only if you entered by a lower level door, Mass at least once during the week days was required, and .. . best memory of all . . . . "Pretty Woman" played on the juke box all day . . .over and over and over. Thank you Roy Orbison.
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  #4  
By tirebiter on 05-28-2022, 12:46 AM
Hi Swampy - Was that the same band that used to practice at UH in the lecture room that looked like it used to be a therapy pool in the basement? I just remember them doing a killer version of "Gloria" one time at KU. Must have been 1966?

I remember having a blast with a guy from Philly who was trying to organize an acapella group like he said was all over the streets of Philly. We did stuff like "We gotta get out of this place" and "The book of love" in the nearby empty buildings under construction nearby at night. Might have involved a six pack...
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  #5  
By Swampy Meadows on 05-28-2022, 09:19 AM
Different band. We didn’t live in UH until 1968.
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