Touched

It often seems as if Randy Johnson gets touched up when the Metropolitans come to town.  In the 1999 NLDS, Randy couldn’t close Gotham out in Arizona’s very first playoff game, he sputtered against them throughout the vaunted "Joe McEwing Era", and last night it was more of the same old, same old for our gangly geezer, losing to these same old Mets and the same, even older, Julio Franco.

Speaking of touched, we missed the first few innings, as we helped serve an early dinner to 1500 Special Olympians, coaches and groupies prior to that evening's big Opening Ceremony at ASU’s Sun Angel Stadium. The Cinco de Mayo themed dinner party busted my dreaded, pre-conceived expectation that people “like that” make you grateful for what you have, which is a sanitized way of saying you’re glad you’re not “like them”. But after four hours, in some ways at least, I couldnt help but wish my son and I were more like these so called "special" people. And, for the record, I'm already enormously proud of my son.

I'm the kind of quasi intellectual who sometimes stands in the background at events like these and observes (ie grumbles and criticises),  which is bloody hard to accomplish when complete strangers appear out of the sky (or so it seems) and literally hug me.  Taciturn, unhuggable me! I mean, just who do these "special" people think they are, anyway? They're friendly, grateful, and when "YMCA" and "I Will Survive" blare through the speakers, they get up, hundreds and hundreds of them, and dance like nobody's watching. Let these silly fools be on notice - I was watching the whole time. Every last one of them. These people are so dam* happy, it almost makes me ill.

My stand up twelve year old, who served cases of tortillas, standing up, to a thousand people for three hours without a break, also served as a marked contrast to many of those he served. I dont think he smiled all day, really. Oh, he took pride in his work and the notion that he "did good", but he didnt seem to enjoy the moment as much as I would've liked. Maybe his parent's overbearing pre -instructions about "not staring" at people robotized him somewhat, or maybe he's learned, in his so called "normal" world, not to let his hair down too much, not to be the center of attention, not to risk looking like a fool? In any case, the Special Olympians, and some of the volunteers, taught me that my son and I both need to get up and dance, neighbors and tabloids be d*mned.

Since everyone's being touched all over the place, let's touch em all, so to speak, and mention that we received a most humbling request to republish our post from a year ago, Touched By Greatness. We will, for two reasons. One, it's somewhat topical, given the Queen of England's agenda today, and two, it's theme of defining champions ties in rather nicely with Special Olympians, I think.

Anyway, here's a link. Read it and weep ;-)

(images courtesy of falboart.com and Michaelangelo)