Treat It Like an Oil Well (Even If It's Not Fluid At All)

I'd spend most of the night in the front room, coupling my favorite records together like a breeder of roses. Whir and click, whir and click. Even in your sleep the sound troubled you. But I didn't know how to come to bed.

I look at my handwriting now and remember the cinder blocks, how I'd crouch down to release the pause button and see the spot on the lower right where you'd ripped that photo booth collage in half. I was preparing to leave, though I wasn't sure what. I was already more attached to the past than the future.

Props

Today the Kansas City Chiefs' Tony Gonzalez broke the NFL career record for receptions as a tight end. And he's still going strong, as his fine stats for this past season attest. I guess this means that I will one day be able to say that I taught a Hall of Famer. Pretty cool. As I've written here before, he was also extremely nice and fairly studious, considering that he was going to both football and basketball practice when he was in my classroom. My favorite memories of Tony were actually from the hardwood and not the gridiron. The way he stepped up his play in 1997 after the Bears' leading scorer Ed Gray sustained a season-ending injury towards the end of the regular season was something to behold. There's no way that Cal finishes Pac-10 play with a victory over the eventual NCAA Champion Arizona Wildcats without him or prevails over those other Wildcats from Villanova to reach the Sweet Sixteen either. That remains my favorite Bears' squad and Gonzalez is one of the reasons why.