Treasures

If the sports radio talk show host was right all those years ago, then life is not the sum of things attained, but instead a wealth of experience.

Money fades, changes color or gets lost. Houses break. Cars stop running. Materialistically, the argument holds merit. And anyone believing experience to hold no value, likely, never had many good ones. So, for the sake of thought let it be true.

The problem is, experience fades too. It changes color. On the worst of occassions, it gets lost. Go back to a college football game. Go back to a high school classroom. Go back anywhere worth going back, then realize just how much has changed.

Life is experience, but like anything else worthwhile, the experiences must be made continually. New ones are necessary. Otherwise, they are little more than things gathered up with time. In fact, they may be a little less.

Choosing Tigers

The left door never hides the lady. That same, foresaken story retells itself without hesitation or exception. The tiger prowls behind the door on the left. The lady waits behind the door to the right. And, in between, a choice.

Any sort of fool may choose poorly once, but what manner of fool makes the same mistake repeatedly, worse yet continually? A rare and true fool this one must be. As if enjoying the lethal sting of claws and teeth, that fool takes his chances when chance is no more.

How blind and embicilic must he be not to choose the right door? He wants the lady, longs for her even. He tremors at fear of the tiger. Yet injuries inflicted already, by reason or excuse, mar him into making his ill-fated decision. The story never changes. Neither does its unlearned lesson.

Down and Set

A hometown divided never stood so tall.

Few trivialities rival the outcome of a football game, yet tonight offered no ordinary contest. The first in a continuous future promising to last so long not a soul will remember how it all started, lines were drawn between neighbor and neighbor, friend and friend.

So too was the field marked time from time, allegiance from allegiance, expectation from seldom considered expectation. Black and red dotted one side, blue and gold the other. Few knew how to feel, or at least how to feel strongly. Yet, each one did.

A time will come for cheering for the one and casting down the other. At least for some it will. But that night is not this night. This night, washed clean by the cold September rain needed more than anything else in this bruised town, there were only proper respects for both teams.