On May 29, 1985, my father saved me from death by soccer. In fact, he did the life-saving a few days prior, in altogether non-dramatic fashion, when, over dinner, he forbade me from attending the European Champions' Cup Final between Juventus and Liverpool at the Heizel Stadium in Brussels. As a result, I wasn't among the 39 who died there after an assault by Liverpool fans, followed by a stampede and a deadly crush in the section where I would have been.
Read MoreThis was the time I had a tough training run on the Arkansas River in which I dumped my crew of fellow trainees into Three Forks rapid, into rocks and, unknowingly, into rebar, sharp and ugly metal. Two of the crew were unnerved from the rebar, the rest from the amount of rocks they had to swim through before I got them back in the raft. Two hoisted themselves back into the boat as I reached for the others.
Read MoreThis is about the old lion and the young lion. This is about the moderate and the progressive. This is about a father who’s the same age as the four girls who got blown up in Birmingham and a son who married a white woman in Montgomery without the city bothering to blink. This is about the soldier and chef who raised a college professor.
But it’s not about that.
Read MoreIf I’m from anywhere, I suppose it’s Iowa. I was born there but left when I was two, my father hauling my mom and my older sister and me across nearly 1,000 miles of interstate to Wilmington, Delaware, where he took a company job selling industrial tools. It would be almost four decades before I returned. Any memories of the Hawkeye state cast during those early years must have been ousted rather swiftly by generic pastoral renderings, the likes of which adorn the glossy calendars in pharmacy checkout lanes.
Read MoreYou are driving into the mountains. This is the first thing you notice as you move deeper into Western Pennsylvania. The second is the message on the dashboard: Low tire pressure. A patter of rain starts. The sky darkens; the sun retires early in January. It’s probably best to pull over. Call someone, but who? You don’t know anyone in the Pittsburgh area. Scroll through the contacts in your phone; dial the first number that makes sense.
Read MoreTo me, the word Punk describes a certain type of people, a certain lifestyle. Punks are extreme in their look. Extreme in fashion and behavior. Punks are loud and proud and in your face. They don’t adhere to any rules. For example, a punk girl might choose to not shave her armpits or legs. She simply lets her body do what it naturally does; she does not alter it. Punk can be anything from dreadlocks, hair in its most unaltered form, to bright intense dyed colors, spiked up with hair cement into sharp inhuman angles.
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