Don't Shoot The Messenger

Hello World, Well, as the late and lamented Aldous Huxley once observed, it's a Brave New World out there, and he wasn't just shooting off his mouth, I can assure you. For everyone out there in the wide world of sports, like me, who thought we would never again see another Triple Crown winner in our lifetime, the unthinkable has happened, like a bolt out of the blue, and I for one, never saw it coming. The 147th running of the venerable Belmont Stakes was on June 6, and astounded racing fans cheered as the favorite, American Pharoah, trotted home with the first Triple Crown in 37 years, since Affirmed in 1978 - and I don't mind saying, a record that seemed destined never to be broken, the way things had been going. (Just ask California Chrome, Smarty Jones, Big Brown, I'll Have Another, Funny Cide, Real Quiet - and don't even get me started on War Emblem, for pity's sake.) Of course, it's a well-worn axiom that records were meant to be broken, and high time that the history books are being rewritten at long last, and putting the tattered shreds of that moldy old curse to bed once and for all. I'm sure that all of us want to send along our heartiest congratulations to American Pharoah, his owners and trainers, for making history and taking his place among the greats before him. Not to quibble, and taking nothing away from the winner, but I was surprised that the race featured what I considered an extremely small field of only 8 horses, and I would have expected it to be far bigger than that, especially with a Triple Crown on the line. There's usually between 10-14 starters for this race, and you have to go all the way back to 2007 to find a line-up as small as this one, oddly enough. Even stranger, both Dortmund and Firing Line were notably among the missing for the event, after slugging it out with American Pharoah in the previous two races, and you would figure, just itching to play spoiler at the end there. There's a rumor that Dortmund was washing his hair, and Firing Line had "a thing," but personally, I have my doubts. Now, I will not stand up and take responsibility for the atrocious weather that hammered Texas a couple of weeks ago, with tornadoes, flooding and widespread destruction on a mammoth scale, but for people in the local area, I'm absolutely prepared to take the blame for the appalling conditions last week, when we threw caution to the wind and bought a new window air conditioner, and it must be said, with total disregard for the consequences. I said to Bill later that it would just about certainly guarantee that the temperature would never climb above 60 degrees for the rest of the year, and in fact, would most likely usher in an unprecedented cold wave as soon as we plugged it in. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened, with gray clammy days full of chilly blustery weather, pelting rain, gale force winds, and plunging temperatures to make you think more of hot chocolate by the fireside, rather than cool lemonade outside in a hammock, I can tell you that. The days were bleak, and even worse, overnight lows in the 40s of all things (and this is in June, mind you) to make even the stoutest believer in global warming have second thoughts. Frankly, I'm surprised that it didn't just spawn an entire new Ice Age in the region, complete with glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost on all sides. Of course, it does no good to complain about the weather, heaven knows, and it can always be worse - and often in the most unexpected ways. Alert readers couldn't help but notice this curious tidbit on the AOL Welcome Screen last week, describing how beleaguered Mexicans were battening down the proverbial hatches, as it were, in the face of the impending Hurricane Blanca: ========================= As the hurricane hurdled toward the Baja California peninsula Sunday, people prepared by boarding up the windows of homes and businesses ========================= Presumably they meant the hurricane "hurtled" toward land, as opposed to hurdling - although truth to tell, the mental image of a massive ominous storm system skipping over the hurdles like a track & field standout has such a delightfully incongruous appeal to it, that I rather prefer it to the correct terminology in this case, I don't mind saying. Meanwhile in other sports news, it would come as a surprise to nobody that the mighty Yankees of lore and legend are leading their division, as well they should, and is only to be expected by their legion of fans, who consider first place as their birth-right, and will brook no contradiction on the subject. But oddly enough, somehow or other, their crosstown rivals, the unheralded Mets have managed to sneak their way into the top of the standings in their own division, right under the very noses of the other teams who ought to be there, and in spite of being only a couple of games over .500 for the season, so that tells you something right there. The pundits can probably tell us when the last time was that both New York teams were in first place at the same time, although our old friends the ill-mannered dinosaurs snickering in The Peanut Gallery are trying to convince me that it pre-dates the invention of fire, and sports records don't go back that far - but I have long since learned (and often to my regret) to place no faith in their acerbic pronouncements, and I refuse to corroborate that assertion. Of course, it's early days yet, and success in June can easily wilt in July and August, but for fans of perennial also-rans, we take our wins where we can get them, and don't take them for granted. Let's go Mets! Speaking of taking things for granted, I'm sure we all realize by now that technology can be a double-edged sword, and all you can do is take the good along with the bad, and hope for the best. Most devices nowadays are subject to a rather aggressive auto-correct feature, leading to the often inadvertent humor that results from its heavy-handed meddling in routine matters that would have been better off without it. I recently received a series of text messages from a colleague about a planned get-together we were trying to organize for later in the month, but somehow hit a little bit wide of the mark, through no fault of their own: ==================== It's called the CT Irish Fest At the North Haven Fairgrounds Opens at noon ==================== ====================== And we could meet you at the shooting center in Trumbull CT ====================== ============================= That was shopping center not shooting ============================= Ya gotta love it! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, Quick Draw, that's about as mixed up as a duck in a shooting gallery, and not to mention, sure as shooting. Of course, I like shopping as much as the next fellow, so I guess now that's been cleared up, I can leave my shooting irons at home, and more's the pity, I'm sure. After all, I have plenty of other things to do, heaven knows. I know it's still early days yet, but pretty soon hurricane season will be upon us, and I really have to practice my hurdling. Elle