Ray Brinzer

This is my favorite very, very short story. It’s from Parables and Paradoxes.

I ran past the first watchman. Then I was horrified, ran back again and said to the watchman: “I ran through here while you were looking the other way.” The watchman gazed ahead of him and said nothing. “I suppose I really oughtn’t to have done it,” I said. The watchman still said nothing. “Does your silence indicate permission to pass?”

Long books on morality have said less.

Jon Kolb is an old friend; his oldest son, Eric, was on my junior high school team. Mr. Kolb (as I called, and in fact still call him) used to take a few of the harder-working wrestlers on the team different places to work out. As he was the strength coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers at the time, we’d often wind up at Three Rivers Stadium, bunny-hopping up the steps, or lifting in the weight room. When the Steelers were lifting at the same time, we’d wait for the weights to come open so we could get sets in. Jon took us out to stay at his ranch, as well, where we did a lot of running. Overall, he took pretty good care of us.

One Sunday afternoon several years ago, Jon showed up with his youngest son, Caleb at an open-room workout the Angry Fish were running. We hadn’t spoken in many years, so it was a pleasant surprise. Caleb was interested in wrestling; Jon was wondering whether it might be too late to start. Caleb was 12, he said, and a pretty good athlete, but had never wrestled before.

“Good,” I said. “No bad habits.” Jon looked surprised, and said, “That’s what I say about kids who have never played Pop Warner football!” He told me how much he liked finding good athletes who were new to football, because the youth coaches generally made a mess out of the ones in their programs.

Now, there is a general perception that sports have become so competitive that to reach the highest levels, one must start kids off at a very young age, and that they must specialize early. The odd thing is, in my experience the people least likely to believe that are elite athletes. And it’s not just wrestling; here’s a fellow with four Super Bowl rings who has the same outlook on football.

Last night Caleb won the Pennsylvania AA state championships at 171 pounds; he went undefeated this year. He’ll be wrestling at Nebraska in the fall.

This cannot possibly be an original observation, but I don’t recall seeing it anywhere. Chess teaches you to fight to the bitter end; backgammon teaches you to quit before it gets worse.

Many chess players will resign after making a blunder, but that assumes the opponent will not subsequently slip up and put you back in the game. Rationally, the thing to do is to dig in and fight harder. In backgammon, on the other hand, the urge to accept a double in a bad situation and make it work is generally a bad thing, and leads to doom.

Backgammon seems a little more sophisticated, in this sense, requiring judgment were chess merely requires tenacity. But while there are times in life where it’s important to cut your losses, if I had to pick one approach it would be fighting. Better to leave your leg in a trap than to hope for a friendly trapper.

I was away from my family on Valentine’s Day. I decided I wanted to send Felabi something nice, so I set to work creating an image for the occasion. After several hours, however, the Gimp crashed, and I lost all my work. I wasn’t up for doing it all over again, so I went to sleep, and didn’t send anything special.

Later, I discovered the existence of South Park character creation sites. After playing for a bit, I used this one and this one to create base characters for my family, tweaked them with the Gimp, and made this little scene as a late valentine “card”.

While this sort of thing doesn’t require much in the way of artistic ability, I’m pleased with it. Felabi, in particular, is easily recognizable, and the whole scene is very reminiscent of my home.

There are a good number of in-jokes, here, by the way. And in case you’re wondering, “Caillou” is a children’s television show. Johannes loves it.

I’m using this as my desktop, right now. I’m not sure why anyone else would want a cartoon of my family on their desktop, but just in case, here it is.