A TRANSCENDENT MOMENT
CLAY PLAY
wherein a new ceramic project from Lana provides an
interesting photo opportunity.
Something extraordinary happened in an awful moment on Easter Sunday.
Louisville player Kevin Ware who had jumped to block a shot, came down horribly wrong, splintering his leg in a compound fracture that is as bad as any sports injury most of us have ever seen.
Players collapsed on the floor, nearby fans were sickened and the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was silenced, stunned and of a single mind, worried about the young athlete writhing in pain.
His coach, Rick Pitino, is quoted as saying he fought nausea, others have said so as well.
Clark Kellogg, who is great guy and a caring compassionate man was barely able to compose himself as he performed his CBS Sports broadcast role. His partner Jim Nantz, another class act, also battled back tears, as did the fiercely competitive Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski.
For almost ten minutes cultural icons like Pitino, Krzyzewski, Kellogg and Nantz, wiped tears and worked on. The broadcasters evinced great concern for Ware and for his team mates who were in shock. Even as Pitino and Coach K looked shaken, ashen and blinked tears, they were concerned for their charges and their well being. We look at Division 1 athletes as men, as competitive stallions, but they are young men, some just out of high school.
You could see people pray, the broadcasters said they were praying, later even the colorful Charles Barkley said he too was praying for Ware.
In a moment, a highly charged and superb athletic ritual is dashed. A young man lay seriously injured, on a playing floor, not a battle field. The uniform he wore was that of a basketball player, not a soldier, cop or firefighter. A terrible and ugly reality crashed into a cultural celebration.
Fans, players, coaches, commentators, in this framed world of hyper play, responded to their shock and dismay with an almost automatic response of care, concern and prayer.
Young Kevin Ware, his bone protruding from his skin, who dreams of playing professional ball, in excruciating pain, uncertain of his future, continued to tell his panic stricken team mates, "Don't worry about me. Just win the game. Win the game."
The thousands in the stadium and the millions of us watching television, have never seen anything like that before. In the midst of a game, a horrible event prompts an almost universal concern and thousands or millions of prayers. Something extraordinary, in an awful moment, on an Easter Sunday.
wherein a new ceramic project from Lana provides an
interesting photo opportunity.
SAN SIMEON CREEK
Our rainy season has been almost 50% deficient this year.
We are experiencing a couple of days of light rain and hoping the system slows to deliver more.
The photos were shot last week on San Simeon Creek, one of the two primary water sources for municipal wells. In a good year, the creek runs with a swifter current and the gravel bars are not visible, until late in the summer.
Talk of lifting a building moratorium to permit a "few" new construction permits a year seems ill advised in a drought year and at a time when some climatologists say we are in a drought cycle. I understand the frustration of property owners who have been waiting years to build, but still, water is a precious resource and this year it is even more precious.
See you down the trail.
