Bears maul Hawkeyes — Ms. Mary’s team wins and sends my far-sighted Hawks flying home for spring. The Baylor Bears of Waco, Texas prevailed Thursday night over the Ioway Hawkeyes of Iowa City, Iowa in the final of the NIT tourney in New York City. Growling and clawing, swiping and batting, those Bears blocked the shots of my normally accurate frontiersmen from Iowa, controlling the field of play. Another day will dawn, another court will beckon, but for now my hat is off to the Bears of Baylor. Sic ‘Em Bears!!!

Here come the Louisville Cardinals.

This afternoon at 5:07 PM CST US, the red-bird Cardinal men of Louisville fly and swoop, swish and zoom to shock and topple the Shockers of Wichita State University. Afterward, at 7:47 PM, the snarling and tenacious Michigan Wolverines pull and shake to topple the Orangemen of Syracuse who will be stepping and shaking to loosen those pesky wolverines and jump free to victory. Both games are too close to call, so run to your sets to watch and cheer. I will say that I saw a cardinal on the snow some seconds ago, and it is still cold in the north country of the Great Lakes. Do these sightings and feelings presage the outcomes for the Final Four? Only time will tell, as it does so well. Tomorrow the Championship Game contenders will be known.

For the women, the NCAA Tournament Final Four are: Louisville versus California on Sunday at 5:30 PM CST US, and Connecticut versus Notre Dame at 8:30 PM. For the Lady Cardinals of Lousiville, Kentucky against the Lady Golden Bears of Berkely, California, my observation is that yesterday the guest signing before us was from Lousiville. For the Lady Huskies of the University of Connecticut in their challenge to the Fighting Irish colleens of Nortre Dame and their pet leprechaun, all I can say is that in the Alaskan Iditarod Huskie Dog Sled Race, Aliy Zirkle came in second, just missing the chance to be the first woman to win the 1,000 mile race across the snow from Anchorage to Nome.  As I am quick to say, these are not prognostications but observations, not predictions but reflections. The real test is that of the participants, and the laurel is theirs to lift. Good luck to all, and to all a good game.

Whatever the outcomes, the fun is for the fans and the applause is for the players.

Keep waiting, watching, and wishing,

Grandpa Jim

In James Fenimore Cooper’s historical novel “The Last of the Mohicans,” Hawkeye is the American frontiersman and hero who, with his sidekicks — the last of the Mohican Indians, rescues the Munro sisters — the dark-haired and serious Cora and the blond and playful Alice, from the villainous Magua and the Huron Indians Magua has duped. In the book, Hawkeye’s real name is Natty Bumppo. Natty’s claim to fame is his accuracy with the long rifle, which earns him the honorific La longue carabine with the French and their Indian allies and the more straight-forward nickname “Hawkeye” because of the deadly accuracy of his well-placed shots. La longue carabine is a true hero, and a hero needs a better name than “Bumppo.” So Natty becomes “Hawkeye,” a more suited appellation for a champion of literature with a sharp eye and an uncanny accuracy with a shot.

Years later, the term “Hawkeye” was used to describe the frontiersman farmers settling in the state of Iowa. The Ioway Indians were there when the first rugged farmers with their long rifles arrived, and my story is that the Ioway Indians observed how accurate the settlers were with their shots. Well, those Ioway Indians sat around their campfire near the Iowa River and talked about the new arrivals and what good shots the newcomers were. One Indian, whose was a reader – even then Iowans were known for their literary focus — remembered James Fenimore’s book and said “Hawkeye.” That was enough. All the Indians nodded in agreement and the new name stuck. Iowans have been Hawkeyes ever since.

I was born in Iowa City, Iowa on the Iowa River while my Dad was studying for his engineering degree at the University of Iowa. My Dad had been born on the old farm next to the Iowa River years before, and my son would be born near the Iowa River in Iowa, City, Iowa, years later while I was studying for my degrees at the University of Iowa.

The emblem of the University of Iowa is a sharp-beaked, big-eyed, yellow profile of a hawk’s head on a black background. It is the Hawkeye. The athletic teams of the University of Iowa are known as the Hawkeyes. Our mascot is Herky the Hawk, and our nickname is the Hawks. Ours is a proud tradition of academics and athletics that dates back to the days of the frontier and those first sharp-eyed farmers who settled the Iowa River valley and were spotted by those well-read Ioway Indians. Many things have changed, but the Hawkeyes have not, nor has their sharp-shooting.

Last night in New York City, the Iowa Hawkeye Men’s Basketball Team shot their way to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) championship game against the Baylor Bears from Waco, Texas. The Hawkeye team got off to a slow start this year, but have re-found their aim and have been hitting the target ever since — winning 11 of their last 14 games. Go, Hawkeyes!

My wife’s Texas relatives are farmers who live near the Brazos River which flows beside Baylor University, where years ago the Waco Indians encamped. My story is that those Native Americans were there as silent shadows slipping between the trees as they observed the hard-working and industrious farmers clearing the land, wrestling with boulders and pulling stumps. Later at night around their campfire near the Brazos River, the Indians talked about the new arrivals and how strong and determined they were, standing so straight and tall. One Indian said “Bears.” The others nodded, and the name stuck. When Baylor was founded, the determined and tall Baylor Bears soon followed to lead their teams to victory.

For generations now, children of my wife’s Texas family have attended Baylor University. They can attest to the quality of the school and its academic and athletic programs, and many can growl and claw like bears when their team is in the midst of a fight.

Who will prevail in the NIT Championship Game? Will it be the sharp-eyed, sharp-shooting Hawkeyes? Could it be those strongly determined and standing-tall Bears?

Whatever happens, it will be in the family.

In a way, I can’t wait.

Can you?

Grandpa Jim

What is a prism and where do those colors come from?

The first sentence of the Wikipedia article reads as follows: “In optics, a prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light.”

Which means: A prism is a chunk of glass that forms a rainbow of colors when light shines through it.

That’s better.

But why does it do that?

Let us return to Isaac Newton, the man with the apple who discovered gravity.

Before Newton, folks thought that light itself was colorless, and the glass composing the prism was responsible for the colors in the exiting rays. Not so, the young Newton surmised. He devised an experiment. Newton passed red colored light from one prism through a second prism and found the light was still red. From this, he theorized the color must be present in the light itself and not created by the prism.

To prove that the color was in the light and not the glass, our budding professor devised another experiment.

The thoughtful Newton took two prisms. He passed white light through the first and got the pretty red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta rainbow we all enjoy seeing on the kitchen table from the crystal in the china cabinet or on the living room walls from that very nice diamond wedding ring. Well, our smart I.N. caught that little rainbow in a lens and bent it back at the second prism. Into the prism those pretty colors went and out they came all white! What? No colors whatsoever. Newton has recomposed the light back to its original white color.

The prism does not create the colors. The prism separates the colors that are already there. Light with all its colors looks white to us. But when white light moves through a glass prism, the internal crystalline structure of the glass or diamond slows down some colors more than other. (Think of runners jumping over hurdles – one runner is shorter and gets slowed down by the hurdles more than a tall runner who reaches the finish line first, even though both runners are as fast on a straight track.) On the other side of the prism, we see the taller colors first, followed by the shorter ones. That’s the rainbow we see – the order of the colors at the finish line depending on how the hurdles in the prism slowed down and separated the runners.

Different colors are impeded more or less as they traverse a prism and appear on the other side in the order of a rainbow.

Isaac was a smartie. He figured in his head that if he focused all those rainbow colors back on another prism, he bet the shorter ones would get through the prism at the same time as the taller colors. And he was right! The short guys and tall guys all finished together in a blur of white. Hurray!! Cool race. Do it again. That was neat.

And it was, because light is composed of different colors – some shorter and some taller. When they move through a glass prism, some are slowed more than others, and the light on the other side is a rainbow of spread-out finishers – who eventually all catch up with each other, and there’s that white light again. But that rainbow sure was fun.

Keep thinking. Isaac did. He figured it out.

And so can you.

I bet,

Grandpa Jim

In 1888, Ernest Thayer wrote perhaps the most famous poem in the history of baseball: “Casey at the Bat.”

The sport today for which we raise our sighs in sad lament is the Big Dance to which the coeds of American college are fighting to its finish. The ball in this court is not the baseball of the Casey poem, but rather the basketball whose game would not be birthed until 1891, three years after Thayer penned his famous piece. The ending though is as poignant and as sad as the verses relate. The mighty lady bears of Waco, Texas are no longer clawing the air under the basket in hopes of the victor’s banner, but are boarding the bus for home.

I’m sure those green-suited lady players are longing for a different day than that the final stanza of Ernest Thayer’s poem echoes:

“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

“The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

“And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

“But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.”

Somewhere, but not for the Bears and their leading player, Brittney Griner.

Brittney is thought by many to be the best female player in college basketball. This was not thought to be her last game. #1 Baylor was playing #5 Louisville. The Louisville Cardinals had a plan in their wings. Three of their birds perched as close as they could and waved their arms around Brittney every time she received the ball. Flustered by the attention, the tactic worked and Ms. Griner did not score a basket until almost 25 minutes had slipped away. Fighting free of the covey of covering Cardinals, Brittney and the Bears fought back, slapping at those bee-like opponents buzzing around her, and finally taking the lead with only 9.2 seconds left. But fate was with the birds and bees of Louisville who silenced the growling bears, dragging the lumbering Wacoites to the floor and defeat by the final score of 82-81.

There is no joy in Wacoville – mighty Brittney has been left out.

But the Tournament goes on and the Big Dance continues for the women and the men; hope springs eternal and lights even the most down-turned face with the sun of the new game on the ‘morrow.

On the men’s side, we have a most interesting development. Into the Final Four of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament fly the Male Cardinals, with their quick bird’s eyes on the Lady Cardinals who soar to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament after souring the hopes of the Waco Bears. What amazing results for the school in Louisville.

The University of Louisville, located in Louisville, Kentucky, was founded in 1798 as the first city-owned public university in the United States. Go City of Louisville! Today, over 22,000 cheering Cardinals attend the university, which offers bachelor’s degrees in 70 fields, masters’ degrees in 78 fields and doctorate degrees in 22 fields of study. The University of Louisville is one of the top public research universities in the US. In 1999, the world’s first successful heart transplant was performed at the university medical facilities, and in 2001 the first artificial heart transplant was accomplished there. Louisville is a leader in the ranks of academia and research, and a school worthy of much acclaim.

Now both Cardinal flocks advance bringing further acclamation to their city of home roost.

I am reminded of another famous Louisville resident, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. Cassius, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali, was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 17, 1942. Ali is the first and only three-times-in-a-row World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. Clay had a unique style with a special shuffle dance and a rope-a-dope-watch-out-here-it-comes way of waving his hands in front of you so you didn’t know what was happening until you hit the floor. I remember the phrase the young fast-talking Clay used to describe his approach: “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

After watching the Lady Cardinals waving and jumping in front of Brittney Griner the other night, I think they were watching some old Cassius Clay films. Those lady birds were floating like butterflies and stinging like bees in their relentless pursuit of the golden ring on the merry-go-round of the NCAA tournament.

Anything can happen and often does in the tournaments. It is good, exciting and something-to-look-forward-to as the red-bird ladies and men advance in their tournaments. With my teams defeated (and I do miss the Bears and wish Ms. Brittney all the best), I will stay on and clap on for those who play on. It is the Big Dance, and those who view its steps and follow its moves revere the sport and applaud those who move to advance and play again. We will be there to watch and encourage the game.

Go Cardinals, in separate flocks of red, fly and float, buzz and sting, reach and sink that basket with a loop-the-loop and rope-a-dope, and when the dust settles, perhaps it will be men and women too, one and both, that to the proud City of Louisville return champions, twinned and two.

Who knows, and there we find the dare?

March Madness is still in the air.

Play on,

Grandpa Jim

Is the Easter Bunny real?

Beatrix Potter must have thought so. She wrote “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” to a sick child in 1893. Illustrated by her own hand, Beatrix published the story in 1901. Since then, over 45 million copies of Peter have sold, making the small book one of the most popular of all time.

My copy of the tale — with the orginal colored drawings by Bea — dates to 1978, with an inscription that it was purchased on my second son’s first shopping trip to the mall in 1981 — when he was a little over a month old. So, his copy is 32 years old, as I imagine he is, too; and the story is still a rousing good tale of gardening adventure by a little rascally bunnie in a blue jacket and black shoes. As his mother notes on Peter’s return home, “It was the second little jacket and pair of shoes that Peter has lost in a fortnight!”

Peter was “very naughty.” He did not listen to his mother, Mrs. Rabbit, but left his sisters to do the work of gathering blackberries while he crept into Mr. McGregor’s garden for a snack. Stuffed and too fat to run, he was chased by Mr. McGregor, who would have certainly baked Peter into a pie – as he had with Peter’s father – if he had caught Peter. Our wayward bunny managed to escape, but at the loss of his jacket and shoes. Peter reached home exhausted and collapsed in a flop “on the floor of their rabbit-hole, and shut his eyes.” Poorly Peter Rabbit was put to bed with a dose of chamomile tea, while his sisters “had bread and milk and blackberries, for supper.”

As I write, I am looking at a porcelain figurine of “Poorly Peter Rabbit.” Next to Peter is a happy threesome of little girl bunnies. Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail got the berries and not the cold, and enjoyed a nice dessert rather than an early-to-bed with nasty medicine.

If you look closely at my trio, you can see that Flopsy’s left ear has been glued back onto her head. She seems quite fine, and she pops up again on the bureau with her sisters each Easter to lead the chase into the woods while Peter gets into trouble again.

The three sisters and Peter are Easter bunnies, because they have been in our house for Easter for as long as many can remember . . . and as long as the happy thoughts I hold so dear.

Easter bunnies are like that – here, there and everywhere. They come in a grand variety of different sizes, shapes and colors, hiding in their bunny holes until Easter arrives. Then, they, one and all, pop out into baskets, under beds, inside plastic eggs, just outside the door in the early morning, or wrapped in pastel papers for a special surprise. Some are hard, some are soft, and some are quite edible and composed of chocolate, marshmallow and assorted candies for girls and boys everywhere to enjoy.

The life of the Easter bunny is one of frolicsome fun, even if it is for only the one holiday each year. When that has passed, off they hop, back into their snug little rabbit holes, to hide and rest until they arrive back again for another Easter time.

When they get old and retire, Easter bunnies paint.

When they get older still and are like Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny, they teach the little bunnies how to paint . . . and not just Easter eggs.

I know this because I have the book, the “Bunny Book,” published by Walt Diney in 1951. My copy was purchased in about 1972 for my first son, who would have been about 2 at the time. The book has been in the house and on the shelves for some 41 years, and it is, as they say, “coming apart at the seams.” They have been very good seams indeed, and it seems to me one of the most favorite of my remembered Easter tales.

When all the little bunnies had graduated from Bunny Painting 101, Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny scratched his tummy and thought of other things to paint. That was when he started to teach those bright-eared rabbit youngsters how to paint the flowers, ferns and mosses, and then the autumn leaves, and the winter shadows and frosty windowpanes, the first tiny buds of spring, the wings of new butterflies, and the whole wildwood in its different seasons and many colors.

One day, Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny told the bunny boys and girls that he was going away, and he told them a secret about the next thing he would paint. The rabbit children were sad and they missed their friend, but they had the secret and they waited patiently.

Not soon after, a great storm shook the woods and the bunnies scurried into the safety of their warm and dry rabbit homes.

Across Bunnyville, Mommy and Daddy rabbits wondered why their children didn’t seem scared, waited patiently by the doors of their burrows and rushed out as soon as the rain stopped.

The little rabbits hopped to the top of the hill and waited there.

Of course, the rest of the residents of Bunnyville followed and stood with their families.

In the west, it started and started, and grew and grew and grew.

In the history of Bunnyville and in the colors of all the seasons of the wildwood, such a sunset had never been seen before. It was the most fantastically colored sunset ever.

The parents watched the sky and watched their children and wondered why the little bunnies smiled and nodded at each other as if they knew something only they knew and it was with them there on that hill and in that sky.

After the last brushes of color dipped and were gone, the children pulled the big bunnies down and whispered into every adult ear, “Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny.”

The bunny parents smiled and nodded back to their little bunnies.

They knew, as we do, that the Easter Bunny is real indeed and just waiting to be seen.

Have a most wondrous and bright Easter with family, friends, Peter and his sisters, and, of course, Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny,

Grandpa Jim

The new Uncle Joe story is here and posted on the Home page!!!!!!!!

This is the eighth Uncle Joe story in the series, and it is a doozy of a tale with a mix of critters you only see on the farm.

Hold on to your hat or it may be blown off in the rush of this new adventure.

I wish you each one and all a very Happy, Fun and Surprising Easter Sunday.

And, if you’re barbecuing, please consider some chicken.

I am sure it would very much please Uncle Joe.

A surprise is in the shop for you.

Happy Easter,

Grandpa Jim

Is the Easter Bunny real?

Beatrix Potter must have thought so. She wrote “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” to a sick child in 1893. Illustrated by her own hand, Beatrix published the story in 1901. Since then, over 45 million copies of Peter have sold, making the small book one of the most popular of all time.

Peter was “very naughty.” He did not listen to his mother, Mrs. Rabbit, but left his sisters to do the work of gathering blackberries while he crept into Mr. McGregor’s garden for a snack. Stuffed and too fat to run, he was chased by Mr. McGregor, who would have certainly baked Peter into a pie – as he had with Peter’s father – if he had caught Peter. Our wayward bunny managed to escape, but at the loss of his little blue jacket and shoes. Peter reached home exhausted and collapsed in a flop “on the floor of their rabbit-hole, and shut his eyes.” Poorly Peter Rabbit was put to bed with a dose of chamomile tea, while his sisters “had bread and milk and blackberries, for supper.”

As I write, I am looking at a porcelain figurine of “Poorly Peter Rabbit.” Next to Peter is a happy threesome of little girl bunnies. Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail got the berries and not the cold, and enjoyed a nice dessert rather than an early-to-bed with nasty medicine.

If you look closely at my trio, you can see that Flopsy’s left ear has been glued back on. She seems quite fine, and she pops up again on the bureau with her sisters each Easter to lead the chase into the woods while Peter gets into trouble again.

The three sisters and Peter are Easter bunnies, because they have been in our house for Easter for as long as many can remember . . . and as long as the happy thoughts I hold so dear.

Easter bunnies are like that – here, there and everywhere. They come in a grand variety of different sizes, shapes and colors, hiding in their bunny holes until Easter arrives. Then, they, one and all, pop out into baskets, under beds, inside plastic eggs, just outside the door in the early morning, or wrapped in pastel papers for a special surprise. Some are hard, some are soft, and some are quite edible and composed of chocolate, marshmallow and assorted candies for girls and boys everywhere to enjoy.

The life of the Easter bunny is one of frolicsome fun, even if it is for only the one holiday each year. When that has passed, off they hop, back into their snug little rabbit holes, to hide and rest until they arrive back again for another Easter time.

When they get old and retire, Easter bunnies paint.

When they get older still and are like Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny, they teach the little bunnies how to paint . . . and not just Easter eggs.

Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny taught the bright-eared rabbit youngsters how to paint the flowers, ferns and mosses, and then the autumn leaves, and the winter shadows and frosty windowpanes, the first tiny buds of spring, the wings of new butterflies, and the whole wildwood in its different seasons and many colors.

One day, Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny told the bunny boys and girls that he was going away, and he told them a secret about the next thing he would paint. The rabbit children were sad, and they missed their friend, but they had the secret and they waited patiently.

Not soon after, a great storm shook the woods and the bunnies scurried into the safety of their warm and dry rabbit homes.

Across Bunnyville, Mommy and Daddy rabbits wondered why their children didn’t seem scared, waited patiently by the doors of their burrows and rushed out as soon as the rain stopped.

The little rabbits hopped to the top of the hill and waited there.

Of course, the rest of the residents of Bunnyville followed and stood with their families.

In the west, it started and started, and grew and grew and grew.

In the history of Bunnyville and in the colors of all the seasons of the wildwood, such a sunset had never been seen before. It was the most fantastically colored sunset ever.

The parents watched the sky and watched their children and wondered why the little bunnies smiled and nodded at each other as if they knew something only they knew and it was with them there on that hill and in that sky.

After the last brushes of color dipped and were gone, the children pulled the big bunnies down and whispered into every adult ear, “Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny.”

The bunny parents smiled and nodded back to their little bunnies.

They knew, as we do, that the Easter Bunny is real indeed and just waiting to be seen.

Have a most wondrous and bright Easter with family, friends, Peter and his sisters, and, of course, Great Grandpa Bunny Bunny,

Grandpa Jim

It was a cold rainy winter December day in Springfield, Massachusetts. The year was 1891. Dr. James Naismith was instructing the gym class at the local Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). He needed something to keep the students occupied and moving.

What to do? He thought, as the guys joked, hit it each other in the arm and passed the soccer ball around. Got to get this class under control. How about Duck on a Rock? That was an old game with running and throwing. No, can’t have rock throwing inside a building. Someone is going to get hurt. Can’t go outside in this weather. He kicked a peach basket on the floor. Where’d that come from? Soccer needs more space than inside this gymnasium. What can we do with that soccer ball? Dr. Naismith stopped and looked down at the peach basket. Why not? It might just work.

“Hey, Wilt,” he yelled at his tallest student, “go get a ladder, some nails and a hammer. Nail this peach basket onto that elevated track up there.”

Basket will be about 10 feet up. Dr. Naismith gauged the distance in his head. That should work.

“What are we doing, Coach?” Wilt asked.

“Playing a new game,” Dr. Naismith answered. “We’ll form teams and see who can get that soccer ball into the basket.”

“Sure, Coach. It’s your idea.”

It was his idea. Dr. Naismith had just invented a new game.

One Hundred and Fifteen years later, in 2006, Dr. Naismith’s granddaughter discovered her grandfather’s handwritten diaries. In there, she found. Dr. Naismith’s name for the new game: “Basket Ball.”

Today, One Hundred and Twenty-Two years later, the final sixteen teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Basketball Tournament have been decided. The tournament itself is lovingly referred to by fans of college basketball (and who isn’t a fan of college basketball?) as the “Big Dance.” It is just that – a wonderful display of running, dribbling, passing, jumping, gliding, flying and dunking by the some of the most outstanding basketball players from across the country.

To begin, the best 68 college basketball teams in the US are selected for what is perhaps the only truly national sports competition in the USA.

The First Round winnows 8 teams to 4 teams, who join the others in the Second Round of 64.

The Second Round of 64 is what I think of as the “real first round,” because that first play of eight squads was added later in 2011 to allow a few more schools to play in the tournament. I grew up with the starting round of 64.

Next, these 64 teams are divided into groups of 16 teams which begin play at different cities assigned to different national regions. The regions are fitting referred to as the Midwest, South, West and East. Of the 16 teams within a region, each team is assigned a rank from #1 to #16, based on past performance and forecast ability to prevail. #1 is arguably the best of that region, and #16 certainly the most determined, but if one thing is certain in the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the unexpected is that. Anything can and does happen, and upsets are the rule and not the exception – which makes this, in my opinion and from a fan’s perspective, one of the most entertaining of collegiate athletic events.

With 64, the competition really begins. 64 teams go to 32 teams, and then 32 teams go to 16 teams — which is what ended last night. These 16 teams are referred to as the “Sweet Sixteen,” because a team that makes it this far has passed a very real milestone, has come of age, and has earned national recognition for the prowess of its players and the quality of its athletic program. Whatever happens next, the Sweet Sixteen are all winners. This is one on my favorite points in the tournament and a moment to be savored.

This year is a first, because in the 2013 Sweet Sixteen, there is one team that was seeded #15 in its opening bracket of 16 teams. Remember #15 means right at the bottom of the heap with little forecast chance of winning and advancing. No #15 team has advanced to the Sweet Sixteen — until this year.

Florida Gulf Coast University (Fla. GC) beat #7 seed San Diego State in the round of 32 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Before that, they beat #2 Georgetown in the round of 64. Florida Gulf Coast University has only held classes for sixteen years, and this is only the second year their basketball team has been eligible for the national tournament. Congratulations, Fla. GC. Now, they move to Arlington, Texas (which is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex where I sit writing this blog) for the next game. If they win, they will advance to the Elite Eight and another first in basketball history. Underdog teams like Florida Gulf States are what make the Big Dance so unpredictably exciting.

For each Region, the next rounds of the Sweet Sixteen and the Elite Eight move to a new city. As noted, Arlington is one of those cities. Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas is hosting the South Region for its 4 of the 16, that will go to its 2 of the 8, that will go to its 1 of the Final Four to advance to the next location.

The Final Four moves to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, where the best 4 of 2013 will dribble, pass and shoot it out, with the two prevailing teams playing for the National Championship and the victor’s crown.

For a college basketball fan, it does not get any better than this.

The only thing better would be if Dr. Naismith could be watching, too.

What am I saying — I bet he is watching, and I bet he’s cheering every time one of those soccer balls falls through that peach basket.

Some things don’t change, they just get better.

Pass the popcorn, I gotta’ game to watch.

Grandpa Jim

World’s Largest Butterfly: Queen Alexandra’s birdwing butterflies have consistently been recognized as the world’s largest butterflies, with wingspans reaching 1 foot (12 inches or 30 centimeters). The birdwings fly so fast and so high in their rainforest canopied home that Albert Meek, the English naturalist credited with first recording the species, blasted the first specimens to the ground with a shotgun. Albert was no meek collector leaping languidly through the grass with a butterfly net. His buckshot-peppered birdwings are still preserved as museum trophies — a sobering comment perhaps on how difficult it can be for a large butterfly to stay off the endangered species list when gun-toting scientists are in the neighborhood.

World’s Shortest-Reigning Pope: Pope John Paul I died on September 28, 1978 after reigning only 34 days. It should be noted, however, that ten other popes spent even less time in office. The shortest pontificate is that of Pope Urban VII, who reigned for only 13 days. Pope Urban died of malaria.

World’s First Public Smoking Ban: We must be reading from the same page. Yes, it was instituted by Pope Urban VII. During his very short time in office, Pope Urban stated unequivocally that he would excommunicate anyone who “took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in a powdered form through the nose.” I’m afraid that first no-chew-smoke-sniff-it ban was as short in effect as the pope’s reign was in length. I guess some people are just ahead of their times.

World’s Loudest Sound: In 1883, in the Sunda Strait, between the islands of Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia, the Krakatao volcanoes erupted and exploded with a gigantic KRRAAAKKK!!!! The sound was so loud and so long and so big that there are reports of the cracking from 3,000 miles away, and the shock waves were recorded on barographs around the world. That was truly a “shot heard ‘round the world,” but it was not the first. The first “shot heard ‘round the world” is the one that echoes in the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1837 poem “Concord Hymn” memorializing the beginning of American Revolutionary War in the 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

I’m sure that shot in Concord wasn’t as loud on the sound scale as the explosion of Krakatao that rocked the world, but sometimes the strength of a sound is not in how loud the report but how many people are affected by the repercussion.

World’s Most Famous Line in English Literature: There are so many wonderful and memorable lines from the literature of so many countries, lands and cultures that many can and should be singled out. They all and each are to be enjoyed by those who read and appreciate those lines in their own settings and times. In English literature, however, perhaps the wordiest of authors was Charles Dickens. Of all those word on all those pages, there is one short novel and one short boy with a limp and a sad-happy smile that brings a tear to my eye and hope in the future for us all. Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol shared a child’s innocent and giving view – one that included each of us without any expectation of gain on his small part – when all eyes turned to the end of the table where Tim sat on his small stool where he pushed up on his crutch, looked us each in the eye and said simply,

“God bless us, everyone”

Thank you, for reading,

Grandpa Jim