By JOHN McCALLUM
Editor
I'm a little slow at times. For instance, it wasn't too long ago that I came to understand that you don't pronounce the ‘t' in potpourri. Or that the word means a mixture of nice smelling flowers, herbs and spices kept in a jar, or a miscellaneous collection of things, and not something completely and entirely unrelated – and maybe not smelling as sweet.
But I've learned, and so this week's column is my one chance to use the French word (said with a nose held slightly up) in print. It's time for Crunch Time potpourri.
It's baseball season folks (not rabbit, duck, mongoose or fiddler crab), and when attending Cheney High School or American Legion games, that pronouncement comes with a little kicker – as in watch where you park.
I was one of the unlucky ones who last Wednesday, April 8, forgot, or in the case of the visiting Deer Park faithful, didn't know or notice that there is no parking along either side of North Sixth Street adjacent to the high school field. And so like the vehicle parked behind me, and the five or six in front when last I looked, we have been given the dubious honor of contributing $25 each to the Cheney economy.
Hey, I'm all for economic development, it's just I'd like a better bang for my 25 bucks than sending it to court coffers. I'm not bitter about getting the ticket since the officer was just doing his or her job.
OK, I am bitter, but I screwed up and I'll live with it. But it would have been nice under the circumstances if someone had perhaps turned the field's P.A. system on and made an announcement about our impending monetary doom, or at least gone out to home plate and loudly announced “Move it or ticket” to those in attendance.
Be that as it may, remember, you've been warned about parking.
On another note, here's an update on Ed McMichael. You may remember him; the Seattle street musician extraordinaire who was affectionately known in Seattle sports circles as “The Tuba Man.”
I wrote about McMichael in a Nov. 20 column, about his being brutally murdered by a gang of roving teenagers near Seattle Center on Oct. 25. An April 3 Seattle Post-Intelligencer article revealed that three teenagers had pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter in his killing, and received juvenile sentences ranging from seven to 18 months.
As is to be expected, the sentences don't sit well with many members of the community, but Ed's family believes justice has been served, and I applaud that. One life has been taken, others severely impacted. Why ruin more?
Sometimes, you have to forgive more so than punish.
What hurts is that law enforcement officials in Seattle know there are many more witnesses to Ed's killing who have refused to come forward and testify as to whether there were more who took part. That's disturbing to me, but they're the ones who will have to live with what they have done, and how it weighs on their conscience.
Speaking of death – sorry for the morbidity folks – there's some bad mojo going round baseball right now.
First, Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart is killed in a senseless auto accident in the early morning hours of April 9. Then, legendary Philadelphia Phillies' broadcaster Harry Kalas collapses and dies in the broadcast booth before the Phillies/Washington Nationals' game on Monday, April 13.
And today, April 14, in the same paper, I read that pitcher
Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, best known for his stellar rookie season in 1976 and on field antics – which included talking to the ball – was found dead underneath his pickup truck at his Boston home.
That's too much, too soon and too early, even if Kalas was 73. I firmly believe in kibosh, and mojo, so somehow, somewhere, something or somebody or group of somebody's did something to anger the game.
Maybe it was all those parking tickets.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com
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