As 2024 begins and we move on from our fixation on 12-31-23 (if makes me think of Len Berry’s 1965 song “1,2,3”), here are some of my rearview mirror ramblings:
— If Chocolate Charlie was around all year long, I would have the shape of a marshmallow.
— I still am in shock that Jim Brown and Dick Butkus died in 2023. Maybe the best ever players on their respective sides of the ball, they seemed immortal when I was a kid.
— And while we’re on celebrity deaths, Raquel Welch’s famous poster from the movie “One Million Years B.C” hung on my wall in college during my freshman year. I probably looked at her as much as I did my books. God rest her soul.
— Instead of gaining my usual 6-to-8 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, I’ve only put on a couple of extra pounds. I guess I didn’t try hard enough to please the cooks this time around.
— Even though this has been one of the mildest of winters so far — SO FAR — it’s still usually been about five degrees too cold for golf, 10 degree too cold to ride my bike and 20 degrees too warm for me to start griping about moving somewhere south.
— Am I going to have to learn how to use something called Venmo to pay back certain friends? Good old cash doesn’t seemed to be as appreciated as much as it once was.
— I received three pairs of sweatpants for Christmas. I guess other family members have finally figured out that I am not a Beau Brummell. (Look him up if you don’t know who he is. And no, he didn’t play for the Cubs.) Sure could have used some new slippers instead of one of those pairs, though.
— I am able to remember my phone number these days only because I have to regurgitate it every time I go to the grocery store without my Martin’s card. I’m still searching for it.
— I’m thinking that former Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman has a better chance at being a star in Hollywood than in the NFL? I wish him well. He seems like a genuinely nice guy.
— Will there soon be a time when big-time college football programs will be completely independent of the schools they supposedly represent, but yet the administration will continue to refer to players as student-athletes? The NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) … the transfer portal … players making more than their assistant coaches — yucko.
— Who else can’t get enough highlights of Notre Dame freshman guard Hannah Hildago? And what a great name. Even better than Hubert H. Humphrey or Horatio Hornblower.
— The way my body hurts after any kind of sports activity, maybe I should try to exel in corn hole. Then again, that ache in my right shoulder ….
— What’s the saddest feeling: Hauling the little live Christmas tree from the kitchen and out to the curb or disassembling the artificial tree (Fake Fred the Second) from the living room and sticking it in a basement box?
— Good news: Even though the Chicago Cubs didn’t pursue Japanese stud pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (love that name, too), I have the free agency first pick in one of my Fantasy Baseball league’s drafts. He will be mine. You don’t care? Neither does my wife.
— My New Year’s Resolutions: Floss more, eat fewer Hostess Cupcakes and win the lottery.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Contact Bill at [email protected]