Landscape and Wasteland

Life has been happening a lot the past few weeks, which is as a good an explanation as any for why I had to drive to Madison, Wisconsin, twice over the course of three days this week. I didn’t expect to see so many dead deer on the side of the road once I crossed over into Packer Land. Clare drove me yesterday so I could pick up a relative’s SUV. It started off typical Midwest November, with gray skies, cold in the air and rain to wash it all down. The rain stopped around Rockford—home of Cheap Trick, you know—and the sky offered hints every now and then of showing some blue. That passed for hope. We talked a little of this, a little of that, life, death and why the Sox didn’t offer Carlos Rodon a qualifying offer. As a parent, you learn to appreciate your children in their adulthood. I still can’t get over how well Clare drives. Then again, she had an excellent teacher. How well I remember the question, “Dad, which one is the gas, again?” All good things come to an end, and that started when we found the SUV; so began the drive back. As a rule, I try not to touch other people’s stuff; that includes mirrors, seat settings and radio stations. Not mine, I just want to get home and have next week better than this one. I turned the radio on for reasons other than boredom; the Wisconsin countryside rolls in a most delightful fashion, with a dash of farm animals and fall color to keep one’s interest. Illinois is flat, but that’s OK, too; it feels like you can see forever, which gives rise to thoughts of eternity and whatnot. But too much reverie can lead to distracted driving, so the radio it was. What a waste. My great misfortune was to have a Chicago sports-talk station on, two “personalities” offering what the station website calls “in-your-face Chicago sports talk with great opinions, guests and fun.” Only for the near two hours I listened, there was none of that. To call the on-air duo “adolescent” would be grossly inaccurate. “Infantile” was more like it. One guy thought it was “cool” to sit so close to Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban, in town Wednesday night with his team playing the Bulls. Cuban has really helped make the NBA what it is today, you know. And there was a near-endless digression on the taunting call in Monday night’s Bears-Steelers’ game that probably sealed the Munsters’ loss. That was separate from the near-endless, adolescent, puerile treatment of remarks superagent Scott Boras made at the baseball general managers’ meeting this week in California. Boras likes to hear himself talk; these guys do, too. They played all of Boras’ cutesy remarks about his clients, of Kris Bryant being like Sean Connery; Nick Castellanos as “ol’ St. Nick” bringing presents by way of his bat; Carlos Rodon, “the thinking man” of a good pitching staff. I swear the guffaws between snippets stretched from the state line to Cook County. Then, they played what Boras had to say about the current state of baseball, which apparently is very bad because of the bonus-pool system that’s been in effect since 2012. From what I can tell, Boras thinks teams should pay huge bonuses to players who then flame out or get injured early on. Isn’t that what used to happen, and isn’t that how the current system came into existence? Neither Boras nor the two radio hyenas considered the possibility. Mercifully, the trip came to its end. I got the SUV to its owner, someone I’ve known since I was eight years old, back in the days of JFK. We talked a little, and then Clare drove me home. Her son was waiting for her. He’d been in Grandma’s care all day. And life kept happening.