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

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