Every once in a while I read something that someone else has written and I think to myself, "Damn, I wish I would have written that."

Today I share with you a recent blogpost from fellow blogger "milosboyisat," who in real life grew up in the same Northeast Iowa town and graduated from the same small-town high school that I did. 


CLICK HERE TO READ HIS EXCELLENT BLOG.

What other things do I have in common with milosboyisat? Well, we both love writing, we both attribute much of that love to the high school tutelage and encouragement of a very smart woman named Marilyn, and we both had the same high school football coach -- my dad.

Anyway, milosboyisat and IowaScribe have stomped over much of the same ground in our lifetimes.

Oelwein, Iowa is a great place to be from.

And I wish I would have written this.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m glad this song stayed in my mind


By milosboyisat
Published Oct. 16, 2013
Re-posted here with permission


Led home by royalty and sirens

Silence. Headlights approaching. Against the backdrop of a clear, cold autumn night, the yellow school bus rounded another curve in the road.

Hit it, boys. From inside the boom box, you could imagine Freddie Mercury looking at Brian May and Roger Taylor, his fellow British punkers from Queen, and saying, ‘These cats are in a party mood and want to hear us again. Let’s oblige them.”

We were pumped and must’ve played ‘Another One Bites The Dust ‘ at least 50 times on the trek home that night. Every time, the keeper of the music hit Play,  the lyrics became more powerful.

Steve walks warily down the street

The brim pulled way down low

And ain’t no sound but the sound of his feet

Machine guns ready to go



For nearly 61 miles, Freddie and the lads entertained this collective group of high school football players and their coaches on a country highway in Iowa celebrating a special night.

Another opponent had bit the dust, but this one was truly special. This one was for glory on the gridiron, a coach’s historic win and a Northeast Iowa Conference championship trophy by defeating the Cresco Cadets on their home turf.

 And another one gone, and another one gone

Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you too


It was Oct. 24, 1980. A coach would earn the 100th victory of his coaching career in dramatic fashion. The high school football team, by eventually finishing the regular season undefeated the next week, would duplicate a local feat that hadn’t been accomplished in over 50 years.

The magical ride ended two weeks later in the first playoff game. Things changed soon after that night. Freddie left us in November of 1991. Our future images of him would be reduced to MTV videos.

As the years went by, we bid farewell to teammates Shawn, Butch and Adam, all key parts of that special team. There would be no football reunions to gather and look back at the season. Our school never formally recognized this special record, which has never been broken.

 Are you ready hey, are you ready for this

Are you standing on the edge of your seat


Truth be told, I was one of the benchwarmers on the team, designated as the guy who chased assistant coach Ryan’s empty candy wrappers onto the field during windy games. As editor of the school paper, my contribution was my No. 2 pencil. I arrived on the team my junior year, knowing my senior year would be something historical.

Coach Grob, the head man, gave me a special shout out at the team banquet by singling me out as the best school newspaper reporter in the Northeast Iowa Conference. I doubt the coach scoured the other school newspapers in the conference for insight. However, it was a compliment that made me feel like a part of the team.

Yes, the whole town was pumped and listened to the game.  Wilma, sensing the historic significance of the event, grabbed a blank cassette tape and stuck it  in a tape player next to the radio in the kitchen to record  the battle, including Adam’s game-winning kick-off return with 1:09 to play.  We listened to to the tape the next night, and, in the background, there is a voice caught up in the moment. “Look at that sonuvab@#$% run,’ she yelled. Ya, that was my  mom adding a blooper moment.

The British lads ended the bus concert in the high school parking lot as the local fire department escorted the team into town towards a large group of fans waiting to join in the celebration.

There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man

And bring him to the ground
Is he ready for you
I’m standing on my own two feet

Maybe at the time, it was a lame thought, but on that night, there were a lot of boys standing together on a mountaintop as one because the last opponent in the road to the conference crown had truly bit the dust.

• Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people; before you tell me how much you love your God, show me in how much you love all His children; before you preach to me of your passion for your faith, teach me about it through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as in how you choose to live and give.
  

                                                 -- Cory Booker

CLICK HERE TO READ THE OTTUMWA POST

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The 200 Channel Television Blues

By JAMES GROB
Ottumwa Post Columnist

There were just three channels -- four if you counted PBS -- but back in the day, everything on television was amazing, and even if it wasn't amazing, we were still amazed by it, because we didn't know any better.

And it was all free.

Now, I pay a couple hundred bucks for a couple hundred channels, and darn near everything I see on my big, wide, high-definition screen is lousy.

Now granted, it's not just a cable company anymore. It's a media company. It includes hundreds of television stations, and various levels of Internet service, and a phone line, and a cell phone plan, and very specific music stations, and some kind of "paid" radio hookup, and quite a few other things I don't exactly understand.

All it really means is that, should some pinhead somewhere out in the boondocks decide to cut one little wire, I lose everything.

It just happened in this area this past weekend. Somehow, one wire got cut somewhere, and for about 14 hours no one had any television, or phone, or Internet.

This is the risk of what they call "bundling." My Granny would have called it "putting all your eggs in one basket."

Maybe. I don't really know if she would have called it that. For all I know, Granny put all her eggs in one basket all the time, it's probably the best way to carry eggs. I mean, putting each individual egg into its own private one-egg basket would be a terribly inefficient way to move eggs from one place to another.

But enough about eggs. Back to television.

For those of you under 35 years old, there once was a time when your television signal came in through an "antenna." Depending upon your locale, if you were lucky, you would get three or four television channels through your antenna. Your TV had 12 or 13 channels, but most of them were blank.

There were people -- let's call them "rich people" -- who bought and rigged up super-huge antennas that could draw in channels from 100 or more miles away, and those lucky ducks might get five or six channels. They were sitting on top of the prime time television world.

And the shows were good. I know, there are a bunch of you out there who are going to claim "Breaking Bad" was as good as any show that's been on television, ever. But that bunch of you is wrong. "Breaking Bad" was a terrible TV show, the only reason you think it was a great show is because you're used to the thousands of TV shows that are on all the cable stations, and all of them are much more awful than "Breaking Bad."

By way of comparison, "Breaking Bad" is a much better TV show than that show with the Honey Boo-Boo or the one with the duck call guys or the one with the mean guys who run a pawn shop in Vegas. Yes, "Breaking Bad" is better than these shows.

But compared to shows like "Charlie's Angels" and "Hogan's Heroes" and "Hart To Hart" and "Soap" and "Columbo," "Breaking Bad" doesn't even come close.

So it's frustrating to pay a couple hundred bucks a month so that you can spend your time trying to find shows that don't suck. Back in the day, you could find a show that didn't suck almost every night, and it didn't cost a dime. That was then. This is now.

And now you get your choice of different media bundles. I get the one that gives me 200 channels, plus the super-extra-quicko Internet service (10 times faster than the super-quicko, 20 times faster than the extra-quicko, but not quite as fast as the yowsa-super-extra-quicko), plus 200 minutes of free long distance telephone that I never use, because I do all my phone talking on my cell phone. It also offers me affordable health care and low-low-low one percent financing on nautical vehicles, but I passed on those. I expect the time I save from the faster Internet to be spent watching some of those 200 channels, not going to the doctor or boating.

There is the DVR factor, or as some call it, the "Tivo" factor. I can record all my shows, and that way I don't have to rearrange my schedule around what time they put my shows on. Instead, I can replay those shows any time it is convenient for me -- usually at about 2 a.m., when I traditionally watch the first five minutes of my shows as I'm falling asleep.

I could bypass the cable and get a "dish." With a dish, what happens is some guy with a mustache comes to your house and drills holes in it, then he climbs up on a ladder and hooks up your receiver dish, then he realizes that he forgot some of the equipment he was supposed to bring, so he leaves -- presumably to get the forgotten equipment -- but he never comes back. And bugs, spiders, birds and the occasional possum all crawl into your house through the holes that the guy drilled.

Eventually, the dish company will send someone out to finish the job, but only because the guy with the mustache forgot the ladder and left it leaning against the side of your house. And it could take anywhere from three days to 17 years before that happens.

That's a lot of MASH reruns you'll miss.

It's enough to make you miss those days of three channels, when everything on TV was good because you didn't know any better.

Sometimes I wish I simply had the willpower to turn the television completely off for a few days, save some money and find myself a more productive hobby.

Like heavy drinking. Or robbing convenience stores.

But until the day I find that willpower, I'll just keep paying a couple hundred bucks a month to watch that show where the guy eats weird foods.

I have nothing to add.

This is awesome ... courtesy of the Web site "Deadspin" -- did you know the national anthem has more than one verse? This lovely young woman does -- and some fans are dismayed as she actually sings THREE verses of the Star-Spangled Banner.

I love the reaction of "Hat Guy." I also love the lady who thinks that she must be singing it in another language. Her man looks at her and just says, "that's English."

Then there's the sports writer in the press box, who seems to think there's some funny business going on.

I am glad she didn't go on to the fourth verse. From what I understand, the fourth verse is pretty much a list of bathroom products that Francis Scott Key's wife had asked him to pick up at the store.

God Bless America!

Glimpses

By JAMES GROB

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE POETRY)

Just a glimpse
A corner streak of bright and cheerful green,
Imposing yet tiny
Like a sleepy, stumbling sunrise
Clumsily illuminating with adorable un-grace
From that mobile cold night
Stepping from intrusive darkness.
A glimpse --
A face neither bright nor cheerful
Hurried and harried?
Maybe somehow lost among familiarity
Looking for something it won't ever find.
Just a glimpse, and
I wanted to stop, but couldn't.
I wanted to stop because I knew
I could cheer that soul
Brighten that face
Make it all better
For just a minute.
A minute to share, connect
To enlighten.
A minute to love.
I just couldn't today.
When I can, I will.
But today I settle for
A glimpse.

I believe this was in about 1988. The apprentice plays for the master.

A Message From Captain Hook:
I've put together a good crew of shipmates to do battle with that awful Peter Pan and his gang of lost boys. While we're at it, we may take aim at Tiger Lily and her Indians as well.
If you look closely in the background, you may catch a glimpse of me, Captain Hook, cleverly disguised as a 21st Century blogger known as "IowaScribe." He's peeking at his crew, around the corner, script in hand.
Be sure to catch this show! At The Iowa Theatre in Bloomfield, November 14-17. Four-day run, Thursday through Sunday! The Davis County Players ALWAYS rock!

Captain Hook's motley crew of pirates is ready to battle with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys as well as Tiger Lily and her Indians in photos taken during rehearsals at The Iowa Theatre in Bloomfield this past week. Actors portraying pirates who are pictured include Wayne Van Mersbergen, Dan Van Horn, Rich Wortmann, Joy Orwig, Terry Williams, Jack Knox and Paul Fleetwood. 
Other pirates not pictured include Makaela Richards and Ryan Snyder. 

The musical Peter Pan will be presented by The Davis County Players at the Iowa Theatre November 14-17. The play will directed by Michelle Grob and Gail Van Mersbergen.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1.
Half a league, half a league,
 Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.
2.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
 Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.
3.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred.
4.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
 All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
 Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
 Not the six hundred.
5.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
 Left of six hundred.
6.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
 All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
 Noble six hundred.