Mabel and Margaret are two little girls. They live in Egypt. It is about 3,500 years ago. They and their parents have a little house near the Nile River. They do not have a brother, yet.

One day, Mabel and Margaret are throwing little rocks at a big rock. It is hot and dry.

* * *

“We gotta get out of this place,” Mabel says tossing a stone.

“You got it there,” Margaret echos. She pings another little rock off another big rock and starts singing,

“Yeah yeah yeah yeah

We gotta get out of this place

If it’s the last thing we ever do

We gotta get out of this place

‘Cause girl, there’s a better life

For me and you.”

“Wow, Marg, that’s good, really good. I think you just invented rock music. I mean, it’s cool.”

“I wish it were, out here. Heh, Mabe, let’s go down to the river and dip our feet. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find something.”

* * *

“What’s that? In the river, over there, Marg. See it, a basket floating this way?”

“Let’s go.” Margaret wades into the shallow water, her sister following.

“Careful,” Mabel says, “something’s moving under the blanket.”

“I’m pulling the cover back,” and Margaret does just that.

“It’s a baby boy,” the sisters chime together.

“Let’s call him ‘Moses.’” Margaret is thinking and talking. “It’s an ‘M’ word, like us, and it’s got two ‘S’s,’ for sisters, like us. And, we found him, so we get to name him.”

“I like the name.” Mabel looks around. “Let’s take him to Mom before anyone sees us. Besides, I’m hungry.”

At that, the baby cries.

“Him too!!” they laugh together and hurry off, over the hill.

* * *

“What you scratching on that rock, Margaret?”

Little Moses is sitting and watching.

“Words, Mabel, words.”

“What ya’ doing that for?”

“Teaching Baby Moses his words.”

“Which words, Marg.”

“Important ones.”

Mabel looks over her sister’s shoulder. “I see the first letters, Margaret. They’re really big. I like how you did that.” She reads: “G I S S, P A M, S L C.” Margaret counts on her fingers. “Ten, that’s ten. Ten big words.” She looks closer. “What are the words?”

“God, Idols, Swearing, Sabbath,” Margaret speaks slowly and precisely, looking at the baby, who is listening intently, “Parents, Adultery, Murder,” she pauses, “Stealing, Lying, Coveting.”

Baby Moses nods his head.

* * *

“Land of Goshen,” their Mom yells with a laugh, as the children race through the house and out the door, “if you don’t slow down, you three will drive me the Promised Land.”

And, they did.

But, that’s another story.

* * *

The two girls and young Moses sit in the sand throwing little rocks at a big rock.

“I don’t like my last name,” Margaret says with a frown.

“What’s wrong with ‘Gump’?” Mabel asks.

“It’s kinda’ lumpy.” Margaret pings the big rock.

“People never remember last names,” Little Moses smiles at his older sister.

“Where’d you learn that, Smartie Pants?” Margaret playfully reaches over and pushes her young brother.

“Don’t know. I just know . . . things.” There is thoughtful, far-away look in Moses’ eyes.

“He does,” Mabel turns her head and watches her brother.

“And, what do you know about lumpy names, Little Brother?” Margaret asks.

Moses picks up a rock and answers without turning his head. “Lumpy is good. The lumpy candies down at the market are good, and the man who runs the booth – he’s kind. He lets us pick one from the tray of all the different treats. Life is like that, like a tray of candies. You never know what you’re gonna’ get, but they’re all good.”

The little boy tosses the rock and hits the big stone. He picks another, aims and strikes the rock hard.

“Good aim, Mighty Mite!” Mabel giggles. “But did you have to smack it twice.”

“Give me ‘Five.’” Margaret reaches over with one hand up, open and wide. “Slap my hand with yours, right there,” she instructs.

Moses does and grins at the sound of the “Slap!”

“What do you call that one, Big Sister?” he asks.

“The ‘High Five.’ I just invented it.”

“You’re a true ‘Gump,’” he adds.

“Thanks, Little Brother. You are too, even though no one is going to remember your last name. Who knows? Maybe a Gump will be in the movies one day and we’ll all be famous.”

“What’s ‘the movies?’” Mabel asks.

“Don’t know,” Margaret answers, “I just made up the word.”

Little Moses smiles in thought and carefully sets the stone in his hand down on the ground.

* * *

It is good to remember the little people.

They are often the ones that cause things to happen.

What is in a name? A Moses by any other name may be a Gump. Right?

Who can say if it is so, or not so – wouldn’t you say?

Bet you can’t hit that big rock?

Your toss,

Grandpa Jim

We watched a delightful movie yesterday evening: “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” What starts the story and makes the movie move is the novel idea of a governmental public relations guru that a good news report would help the image of the administration. The savvy PR lady directs her staff to give her a good news story. “Find it now!” she commands the suited crew at their laptop stations. The result of that search is what gets the movie going and the fish running to the wonder of us watching.

Where is that good news story?

Today there was scarce to be seen that was not scary in the front section of the paper. I scanned and frowned. National and metro news were generally bleak. The sports section will attract a few fans, and the food fold can stimulate the appetite, but both those pieces are back and behind the opening sections that portend little with a smile and much of concern.

I think the manic PR manager in the movie was right: “We need the good news!”

There is, perhaps, in this wish and plea a comment on who we are and where we’re at. As members of the species homo sapien, we seem often to be portrayed with a club in one hand and a burning torch in the other. It appears we are seen by some to be always looking and searching for something new, never quite satisfied with what we have; and when we find that something new ahead in the light of the torch, well — I know it seems somewhat negative to say this – but . . . there are those who would suggest we tend to use that blunt instrument in the other hand to get our way.

In fairness, it should be noted that we are the only surviving hominid. So, maybe it is important that we are this way. But and still – and I say this with no disrespect – it doesn’t seem to make for the most upbeat and light-hearted news.

Then, again and maybe I am putting too much at the feet of our bipedal ancestors. Perhaps it is not us at all but only the paper, the media, the reporting. We’re perfectly fine, quite upbeat and happily at home where we are on the byways and in the skyways of our own domains. “Blame it on the press!” the shout is heard. “It’s all the fault of the reporters.”

Well, the sensational does sell. Who wants to see the silly sideshows of Main Street, Your Town, when there are explosions, fires and those not behaving as they should?

The news is important. It is important to know what’s going on. But, isn’t there a lot of good going on, and couldn’t we see maybe a little more of that?

In the movie, they have to work to find the good news. When they do find it, they lose it. They pretty much give up. Then, it jumps up right in front of them. Not because they made it happen, but because it was always there and they just didn’t see it until then. I laughed because the fast-talking PR lady with her reporter side-kicks had driven off minutes before and never did find the real story.

The good news is there. Don’t worry. Wait until the TV trucks and sound crews leave. You’ll see it.

In just a second now,

Grandpa Jim

Early this morning on the toll way, I passed a billboard welcoming to town a President of the United States. More signs and banners appeared everywhere — greeting more Presidents. Dallas is in a flurry and flush of excitement. Today is the Day of the Five Presidents.

Current President Barack Obama arrived yesterday. Past Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are joining Past President Dad George H. W. Bush. Together, they will make their way to the dedication of Past President Son George W. Bush’s Presidential Center and Library.

The Library is on the campus of Southern Methodist University. SMU is a gorgeous tree-lined retreat in the midst of the city’s bustle and buzz. Students race to classes — notes, papers, tweets and texts floating free behind them in the soft April spring breezes.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour

The opening lines of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are quite appropriate today. Flowers are budding, birds are singing. The skies are clear, and the high will be 72 degrees. It is a perfect spring day. It is idyllic — picturesque, ideal, and peaceful.

The tenure of a President is seldom that — idyllic.

On the trail this morning, only a mile or less from the library and its guests, I asked myself what word distinguished the Presidency of Son George W. Bush. The word that jumped to my mind was “terror.” I thought of the terror of terrorism and the terrorist.

What is terrorism? I asked myself the question as I walked. To me, terrorism is the intentional infliction of death or injury to people and/or damage to property to bring attention to a perceived wrong. I realized that the wrong could be quite legitimate and in need of response. It was not the wrong that was the issue with terrorism. I also realized that the issue with terrorism was not whether the people impacted were connected to or in some way responsible for the wrong. They may or may not be. The concern with terrorism is how the terrorist chooses to bring attention to the wrong. The way the terrorist chooses is to kill, injure and damage. The terrorist chooses violence to highlight a concern. Hurt first, talk later. That’s irrational. A person will never agree with someone who’s hurting them. Terrorism makes no sense. Stop hurting and start talking. No one every changed someone’s mind with a club. You will get your way, but you will have lost your audience.

The President of the New Library, President George W. Bush, did something very brave. He stood up to the terrorists and said “No.” Period, end of sentence, the answer was: No to Terrorism. That’s courageous. He can be criticized for how and in what fashion the response to terrorism was carried out by his administration. In time, the new library will likely chronicle the President’s responses to those criticisms. For now, the stance he took was to me a good one. You have to say “No” to terrorism. We all have to say “No” to terrorism. When faced with the insensible, “No” is the only answer that makes sense.

It’s not easy being President. The buck stops there. All the Presidents today know that, all have suffered criticism for their actions, and all have kept going. It is not a job I would think anyone would want. And, once you get the job, I’m sure the best plans last about a day, if that long.

Presidents serve. They serve the people, the Congress, the Courts and the world. They may enter the oval office thinking, to some small extent, about themselves. I believe they each leave selfless, thinking only of others, having carried the weight of the worries of our planet on their shoulders, and wishing they could have done better. They do deserve our respect.

I have always respected the office of the President. On my quiet walk in the welcoming spring this morning, I realized that I respected each of the men who would soon sit only minutes away. I realized today that the office and the person are both to be respected. Both have shown themselves worthy since the foundation of our country and our first President. They are cut from the same fabric, have shown the same mettle, and have served with honor.

As a people, we should stand quietly and applaud them each and all together.

Thank you, Mr. Presidents. You are always welcome in our town.

Grandpa Jim

In Texas in the spring, the bluebonnets bloom, between the fence strands, row on row, climbing to the sky beyond.

My favorite word-picture of the bluebonnet rests beside a reproduction of the original bloom in a book of paintings entitled “Texas Wild Flowers.” In the late 1840’s and early 1850’s, a young pioneer wife by the name of Eliza Griffin Johnston painted the flowers of the Texas prairies. In her own flowing hand, beside her picture of a single stem of bluebonnets, she writes: “The Lupin, called by the people of the country ‘Bonnet flower,’ it grows in such profusion that in the Prairie in the distance, often closely resembles the blue waters of a lake, and again on the horizon, one can scarcely tell where earth and sky meet.”

On Saturday, we drove the trails of the bluebonnets near Ennis, Texas, south of Dallas. Ennis is a small Czech town located across the farmlands from the other Czech community of West, Texas. West is where the fertilizer plant exploded last Wednesday, April 17, 2013, killing and injuring relatives and friends of so many who live in and around the villages of West and Ennis.

I always think of Ennis as meaning “east.” It is the town to the east of “West.” Between the two rural communities are the home-farms of those who came to this country to find a new home and to do what they do so well, farm the rich soils of central Texas. Where the soils are not so rich, on the sides of hills and sandy slopes near Ennis, the hardy wild flowers gaze out over the pastures below.

In the blooms this year, there seems a tinge of sadness. Yet, the stemmed petals stand bright and sure, encouraging those who travel the winding roads to stop their cars and walk out into the fields. The spirits of those visitors are lifted by the blue flowers nodding their bonnets across the prairies and to the west.

This single bloom stopped us by a small stream.

Driving on, we pulled to the side of the road to watch, through the car windows, Eliza’s blue waters flowing across the hills.

Nearby, we opened the doors and walked with others to kneel and take our pictures.

Continuing on, blues mixed with a spattering of orange tops brought our attention to some Indan paint brushes who had stopped to converse with the bonnetted farm wives.

Through the rust red of the fence, we spied far off the Stars and Stripes waving in a gentle breeze above the flowered heads.

Many a trip is from here to there and back again. For this day, ours was finishing. There is great beauty in the Texas spring, in the bluebonnet’s annual March to May, and the other petalled friends that greet them on their way. The images and the memories will linger long, as will those of the others we hold so dear.

Until the next spring,

Grandpa Jim

From at least 2,000 BC until the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors in about 1500 AD, the Mayan civilization flourished in Central America. Mayan cities, fields and roads stretched through the green and wet of middle America, extending from modern-day southern Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula to Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. For over 3,500 years, the Maya and their culture of farming, building, trade, politics, warfare, mathematics, astronomy and writing were one of the most dominant, varied and developed of the civilizations of Mesoamerica.

In the jungles, the remains of the Mayan pyramids stand overgrown, vegetation softening the once busy lines of the structures and blurring the perimeter markings of the fields and the outlines of the roadways. Some of the monuments have been restored and are busy again — now with tourists buying trinkets and cold drinks. Many of the locations have been looted, the artifacts sold to bidders who may know little of the peoples who made them long ago.

The paper the other morning had an article under “Art.” Two rare ceramic Mayan censer stands from about 700 AD had been acquired by a museum.  In the pictures, the stands for burning scented gums are impressive. One is a many-layered jaguar god, the other the climbing head of a supernatural being. The article reported that the purchasing officials declined to say how much the artifacts had cost. The writer opined that such objects were rarely seen at auction, but would probably sell for $2-3 million dollars each.

The stands left Mexico in 1968. No mention was made as to how they left Mexico or where they had originally been discovered. Lost objects of a disappeared people, the fantastic ceramics may now greet wary school children on tours to a museum and travel perhaps with the young minds into their night slumbers.

On the stands, there are symbols to the right and left.

Those symbols are glyphs. The glyphs are word pictures, the lost writing of the Maya. We know now that the Maya possessed a true writing system. The glyphs and their contained symbols have been interpreted and can be read. Much of the complicated writing is history, stories of the times, rulers and battles of the Maya, who they were when sweet-smelling smoke rose from the tops of incense burners in their jungle temples.

Not all writing is the same.

It took a very long time to rediscover the Mayan script. The meanings of the written glyphs were lost after the Spanish conquered the lands, the European diseases decimated the peoples, and the surviving Maya crept back into the primal forests to forget the past. Scholars have long studied the blocky, columned, picture-like glyphs and wondered and conjectured and sought to piece together their meaning, seeking the help of old stories told by village elders and remnant words spoken along hidden streams by natives with the profiles of their ancestors cut into the stones on the walls of the fallen cities. Now, we know the glyphs are the words of the ancient Maya, a language that still exists and has for thousands of years, only to be found again.

In the West and the lands of my European ancestors, writing starts with an alphabet of 26 letters: 21 consonants and five vowels. Each consonant and vowel has a little sound. We combine the little sounds into syllables. Some of our syllable are simple words, for example, go and ten, got and end. Many of our words are combinations of syllables, for example, gotten. My writing system, the one I’m using right now to compose this post, is a 26-sign-alphabet-based writing system.

The Mayan writing system starts with many many more signs — some 800 signs. Each Mayan sign is a syllable, not a letter. By comparison to our alphabetic system, the Mayan syllabic system would have separate signs for the sounds “go” and “ten,” “got” and “end.” The Maya did not construct these syllabic sounds from letters, they started with the sounds of the syllables themselves and invented signs to represent the sounds. In Mayan, the word “gotten” could be the symbols for “go” and “ten” contained in a picture-block or glyph composed of the two signs. The Mayan scribe could also construct the word “gotten” from the signs for “got” and “end.” (This example is purely exemplary; I don’t know if the Mayan language actually has signs for “go” and “ten” and “got” and “end” for the word “gotten;” but I’ve use these fabricated combinations to help you get the picture.) The point is that the Mayan writer of the past could have gotten to the word “gotten” by different routes using different syllabic word signs to construct the word.

So, this all sounds quite complicated, and it is — which is why it took so long to re-figure out the Mayan writing system.

Those figures or glyphs are more than just pictures, they are word drawings composed of syllable sound-signs.

And, those fancy incense stands in the paper are more than towering and fantastic faces with signs-to-the-sides.

Those signs on the stands may be the name of the jaguar or the story of the supernatural being or something even more amazing and unknown.

Who would have ever known?

Many earlier in their time.

And a few today.

You, too?

Grandpa Jim

Today’s Headline: Letter to 12-year-old Sells for $5.3 Million

On March 19, 1953 the scientist, Francis Crick, penned a letter to his son of 12 years, Michael.

In part, the letter reads as follows:

“My Dear Michael, Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery. We have built a model for the structure of des-oxy-ribose-nucleic-acid (read it carefully) called D.N.A. for short. . . . Our structure is very beautiful. . . . D.N.A. can be thought of roughly as a very big chain with flat bits sticking out. The flat bits are called the ‘bases.’ . . . In other words we think we have found the basic copying mechanism by which life comes from life…”

Michael’s dad had discovered one of the basic building blocks of life, DNA — known today as deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA for short, which it isn’t, it is quite long, in beautifully extended double-helical rope-like strands, that turn and spin, forever and forever, or so it seems, in a fascinatingly enticing twirl of new beginnings and life began.

You know DNA by its more commonly heard compositional marker, the chromosome. Chromosomes are made up of DNA. Chromosomal DNA contains the codes for you, for all of you, for who you are — from the color of your eyes to the turn of your toes, the shape of your ears and the twitch of your nose, why you don’t like the beet but love to crunch a sweet treat, why you do mind the cold and tolerate so well the heat, and why Jennie the Jet runs faster but Linda the Leaper can jump higher and reach the finish line before her.

As Cole Porter wrote so well of your DNA and Ella Fitzgerald sang so well of you and your chromosomes:

I love the look of you, the lure of you
The sweet of you, and the pure of you
The eyes, the arms, and the mouth of you
The east, west, north, and the south of you
I’d love to gain complete control of you
Handle even the heart and soul of you
Love at least a small percent of me do
Because I love all of you

That’s the all of you, the what you are and where you started to be you, and that’s the DNA of you.

In 1953, Michael’s Dad and his buddy, James Watson, were the first to describe correctly the unique double-helix model of the DNA structure. And in 1957, Francis Crick announced “the central dogma of molecular biology,” which describes how that DNA gets turned into you.

DNA has your chromosomal codes. You body first replicates a slice of DNA so it can work with the copy. Next, your body transcribes that DNA copy onto a messenger molecule called a ribonucleic acid, RNA. The basic information on the messenger RNA is received by the manufacturing units in your body where it is translated and the specifications are used to fabricate a “you” protein to “your” DNA code. That is how you were made and how you repair and maintain the person you are. As one biochemist put it: “DNA makes RNA makes protein.” And, I’m sure, it does much, much more.

There you have why a letter to a 12-year-old boy with a simple sketch of a DNA double helix was seen by an anonymous bidder to be worth $5.3 million dollars.

You may want to save those old letters.

No telling what may be in there.

Maybe some old pictures,

Of some of the family,

Or even all of you,

Good Looking,

Grandpa Jim

The Days of the Peach Basket have ended. We, the men and women of Middle Earth, can return to our work, leaving behind the joys of the Big Dance. The warriors of our courts can return to their homes, leaving behind the empty ballrooms of the fast-paced and well-played contests. The players have contained the March Madness. The battles have been fought, the victors have been crowned. Through their efforts, the land can rest for another season.

This morning my hat is off to the Lady Huskies of Connecticut. Last night was the final battle of a long campaign, and the women of Connecticut handled the game well. On waking, my first memory was a Lady Huskie offering a hand to lift a battered Redbird from the floor. For the UConn women, there was skill in their play and style in their manner.

On the field of play, the Huskies were relentless, mushing their sled from end-to-end, the fast-and-quick pullers jumping to the top of the conveyance and sinking basket-after-basket from each-and-every direction, then turning that sled of tricks to mush back and harass the Cardinals at every attempted bird flight and each swooping move. The Ladies of Louisville wore down, but they never gave up. Neither team did. That is high commendation to both squads on the Night of the Last Basket, the last game of the  2013 College Basketball Wars.

The last game was Connecticut’s, their eighth National Title – they are true Champions.

We, the welcoming throngs, cheer and clap for the warrior women of Connecticut – they are Winners.

Standing with us, with a smile and a wave, are the Lady Cardinals saluting their foes and friends, the Lady Huskies, as the Connecticut players pass, wearing their hard-won tiaras, the diadems of their success.

It is a game, but it is much, much more.

Our congratulations extend to each and every team.

A special heart-felt Thank You to the Lady Huskies for a quality first-place finish.

Next year, our hopes will return to the Hoops of March.

It is a game, but it is so much, much more.

See you at the dance,

Don’t be late,

Next year,

Grandpa Jim

The male Cardinals of Louisville are #1, defeating Michigan last night for the redbird gentlemen’s 3rd national title. The game sounds like it was a rip rouser of a ruckus.

For the battle between the Michigan Wolverines and Louisville Cardinals, I was, unfortunately, in a meeting – where the chair announced from a glance at his cell that Louisville was behind in the first half, which I took as a good sign for the #1 seed Louisville against the #4 seed Michigan, to be behind and something of the lesser favored by the early action for the more favored by the pollsters’ end predictions. As you have probably espied, Grandpa Jim prefers his teams to fight back, challenged by the action of adversity and testing the metal of their making in a forge of fast-paced flow and fight. And, I have a predilection for signs. The good news is that the signs are only right about half the time (which seems about right, if you think about it), but it is fun to see the sway of the game in what’s around me, inviting a mental gymnastics of anticipations, suggesting the outcome of the event, which is always its own in any event. Still, I like the signs, and the signs held true for Louisville’s advance last night. Final Score: Cardinals 82, Wolverines 76.

Whew, that paragraph took almost as long to say as the game took to play.

Continuing March Madness into April (sled with me on this), today, in the Dr. Naismith calendar of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, is the 40th Day of March. Forty days is a significant length of time in ancient literature, signfying a period of true testing with a welcome outcome for those who endure to the end. This is the last day of the Lenten march of rigor to the basketball season’s ending, and tonight is the women’s final test of skill and daring on the wooden floor beneath the nesting nets awaiting the last arching spheres of two’s and three’s in their count — in other words, this is the last college basketball game of this basketball year.

I think it appropriate that the Lady Cardinals and the Lady Huskies usher this year of hoops to its ending.

The Lady Huskies of the University of Connecticut are seeded #1, and they will be racing across the floor for what they hope will be their eighth national title. The UConn ladies are 7:0 in title games – including a win in 2009 against Louisville, and those sledding Huskies have been the winners the last nine times they have raced the flashing redbirds. Clearly the Cardinals of Lousiville are the underbirds, but they are high-flying birds who have defeated favored opponent after favored opponent on their way to this last game, upsetting the Baylor Bears, Tennessee Volunteers and California Golden Bears. Can they do it one more time? I think the Cardinal Coach stated it well when he said, “Its going to take the best game we’ve played to date.”

Now, that’s a date you don’t want to miss. Tonight, at 7:30 PM CST USA. Pull up a chair, grab the popcorn and soda, and see for yourself if the Ladies of Louisville will make it a match and zoom back with their mates to sweet hometown Kentucky in a gust of glory?

Time will tell. Don’t forget to yell – it’s allowed. Excitement is in the air. Mush on Lady Huskies. Fly free Lady Cardinals. We are with you both to the final second of this last game and the tournament’s crowning moment.

May the signs be yours tonight.

Grandpa Jim

The cardinals of spring prevail. Everywhere you turn, cardinals are in the air. The sightings of the season hold true. Both the Gentlemen and Lady Redbirds win and advance!!

On Saturday, The Louisville Cardinal men defeated the Shockers of Wichita State and earned the right to migrate their entire flock of male redbirds to the title game. For that game, it will be Louisville against the Wolverines of Michigan — who defeated the Orangemen of Syracuse.

The men’s final game is tonight, March 39^th, at 8:23 PM CST USA. In NCAA Basketball parlance, today must be March 39^th (and not April 8^th as the calendar so incorrectly states) because March Madness must continue until the Big Dance is over and the prevailing men and women teams earn their hoops and are crowned champions of the court. Until that happy outcome is attained, April must bide its time and spring must wait to bud. (Sorry, Punxsutawney Phil, but even groundhogs will be glued to the game in their burrows until the rite is complete.) These are the Days of the Peach Basket, and the world waits the crowning of the champions of college B-ball.

Returning to the women, last night the female redbirds of Louisville became the first #5 seed in the history of the ladies’ tournament to advance to the championship game. In a tightly played match, the Golden Bears of California had almost wrestled their opponents to the floor when the Cardinals started pecking back from a 10-point halftime deficit. At the end, it was a race for the final baskets, with the lady cardinals lifting their shots over the stumbling ursidaes to claim the victory perch and advance to the last limb of the tourney.

Their opponent was harder to determine. I had thought the Irish colleens of Notre Dame would dance their way to the winner’s game. On the drive home from the airport last night as the game was playing, a sleek new car cut in front of us. It was then that I saw the plates of that car: “Connecticut.” My heart sank. I knew in the way that fans without their screens know – in the heart. I waited and hoped that the Notre Dames ladies would prevail – for what would have been the fourth time this season – over the lady Huskies, but it was not to be so. And, like all good fans of the game from every region of the land, I quickly recovered to congratulate the winner and look forward to the next contest – the final game of the NCAA tournament that will officially end the season and allow April to return with the sweet scents of a new season.

Tomorrow night at 6:30 PM CST USA, the two remaining female basketball teams of the 2013 college season will nod and smile and begin the final turn of a very full dance card that will have reached its last song. The University of Louisville versus the University of Connecticut. Lady Cardinals versus Lady Huskies. By then, we will know if the Men Redbirds are champs, and if the Lady Redbirds are hoping to be dual men’s and women’s NCAA champions. Same school champions last happened in 2004 when the University of Connecticut men and women did just that. And, who do you think the Louisville women are playing? You got it – the UConn women. It will assuredly make for a very exciting concluding evening of college basketball playing and watching.

See you court-side – on the telly, of course.

Go Team and Fans, too,

Grandpa Jim