Memorial Day traditions? Oh baby...

Every year, my wife and I enjoy Memorial Day Weekend. I've had to work a few of them, since I work in the racing business, but mostly I have been home and we enjoy the time together. A teacher, Amy always has Memorial Monday off.

I know that most families have some sort of tradition for that weekend. My Dad used to paint the house every year. For many, it's the best time for the first pool party of the year. Here in California, it is often the first good weekend to hit the beach. Some people like to catch a baseball game and others enjoy watching the NBA playoffs.

Not us. We have 1,100 miles of auto racing to watch, leading off with the Indianapolis 500. The NASCAR 600 mile race at Charlotte is the nightcap. We take both very seriously.

The yard work is done Saturday, if it is done at all. The chips and dips are stocked a day or two before the races. Dinner changes from year to year, but the volume on the TV can be loud enough to be heard in the kitchen, if the kitchen is used. We have frequently prepared dinner by calling the local pizza take out place on Memorial Sunday.

I video tape the 500 every year. I go back and watch them sometimes and try to figure how things happened or why they happened. I've taped the race for about 27 years now and I still have every tape. Always record the singing of Back home again in Indiana, the sounding of Taps, the national anthem and the command to start the engines. And every year I get the same feeling, an emotional tug that draws me in until the race is over.

I've covered the 500 three times as a journalist and worked the Brickyard 400 three times for Goodyear. I've been through the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum several times and toured the track several times. And yet I get the same feeling watching the ceremonial pre-race activity on television that I get when I drive on to the grounds of the Speedway. I can't tell you why, but it doesn't matter. It happens. The why is unimportant. I have an attachment to the place that just doesn't go away.

Then there is the 600, the NASCAR endurance race that starts in the daylight and finishes after dark. This is another special race, a race that never lacks for drama. You just don't know what is going to happen. I've never worked this race but it is a great event to watch on TV.

Those races are our family tradition on Memorial Day.

Remember my Dad and his house painting? He did that while listening to the 500 on the radio. Sid Collins anchored the coverage. When the race ended, Dad stopped, noted where he was in the process and started in the same spot the following year. This was before the race was on live television and even before ABC began tape delaying the coverage. The house got a lot of paint during races which included rain delays.

In those days, Memorial Day was set for a specific day of the month, not the last Monday. If the race was rained out and had to be run the next day, I was in the cursed position of being in school during the running of the Indianapolis 500. So any guy who showed up with a transistor radio was suddenly a very popular guy.

One year, I'm pretty sure I was in the fifth grade, a theater in Westwood showed the race live via closed circuit technology. We didn't go, but the race was postponed by rain, twice. One guy in my class missed two days of school because his dad refused to waste the money he'd spent buying the tickets to watch the closed circuit race coverage. The kid got back for the last hour or so of school after the race was finally completed. I thought he should have been allowed to give an unscheduled, extra credit oral report so we'd know what happened in the race, but the teacher had no imagination at all and I was reduced to talking non-stop to the guy during class time (and getting in trouble for it) in order to find out what happened in the race.

With that in mind, I guess it is time to tell the story of my Indianapolis 500 experience in May of 1979. The family had a small event to attend on race day, an event I could not get out of. You see, I was due to graduate from San Diego State University that day. This was a bigger upset than the Jets beating the Colts in the Super Bowl, bigger even than the iceberg versus the Titanic. There was no getting out of it, I had to go and that meant missing the race.

Maybe.

As a soon-to-be college graduate, I had new skills, skills honed during years of matriculating through a great American university. I was now a problem solver, equipped with a working knowledge of the very latest technical developments in the world of communications.

And so, while the guest speaker, the Governor of some state somewhere in Mexico, droned on with whatever it was he said on some topic of vast international import (which I didn't care about) during the graduation proceedings, I sat in my assigned spot on the floor of the Aztec Bowl and listened to the radio coverage of the Indianapolis 500 on my brand new transistor radio. Had a little ear piece whose cord I kept under the black graduation robe. It peaked out through my collar and was jammed into my ear.

The only way I knew to change the tassel on my mortar board was when I saw everyone else doing it. I knew it was time to leave when everyone else in my graduating class stood up.

I was officially a college graduate. But, more importantly, I was the only guy in the crowd who knew what happened at the Indianapolis 500 and there was nothing my fifth grade teacher could do about it.

It's Memorial Day. It's 1,100 miles of tradition. And I'll be watching.

Thanks for reading.

Our driveway: Home court disadvantage

When our kids were little we would sometimes play basketball in the driveway of our home in Oxnard. Generally, it was the two of them against me.

The reader should understand that when the kids were ages eight and three, my majestic hook shot was deadly from five or six feet away. The double-team defense the kids employed against me was no good once I got in position in front of the basket. I was unstoppable.

But defense always comes first at our house and the kids did their best to stop me from getting into hook shot range. One of them -- usually the younger one, my daughter -- would grab one of my legs and attempt to sit on my foot while the other half of this gruesome twosome, my son, would grab the hand I was dribbling with. He never grabbed at the ball, just my hand.

It’s the same defense you see frequently during the NBA playoffs.

Now Regan, the three year old, wasn’t much bigger than the ball. She bounced the ball with both hands, when she bounced it at all, then carried it in both hands until she got tired on holding it. Then she’d shoot (with a little help). NBA fans see Lebron James making the same move to the basket nowadays, dribbling with two hands and then running all over the court without dribbling. Michael Jordan did the same thing. Jordan made a video named, Come Fly With Me, which should have been named, A Basketball Travelogue. Regan was just another travel agent.

Sean, who was eight then, didn’t need any help. He’s a mixed martial arts guy now and I must say his playing style back in the days gone by should have given me ample indication of his interest in full-contact sports. You talk about hacking! His defensive work strongly resembled the style of play the Boston Celtics are allowed to use at home in the Boston Garden.

When the kids had the ball, I didn’t play much defense. I looked a lot like the NBA All-Star Game: All scoring and no defense.

As I re-read this, it occurs to me that we should have sold tickets to our neighbors to watch us play back then. We had all that NBA style without the network TV commercial time outs. There were no cheerleaders, but our tickets would have been discounted for that reason.

You never know where the next great basketball star is going to come from. None came from our driveway, that’s a cinch. But, if we didn’t play as well as the pros, we at least played like the pros. Doesn’t that count for something?

Thanks for reading!

Clips, snaps and soup

I have spent a fair amount of money on photography equipment and have had a lot of fun learning to use it all properly. I’m still learning but most photogs will say the learning never stops.

I’ve used it all mainly for business purposes. I have been able to sell words to various magazines through the years and got frustrated when the same magazines paid someone else to capture images to go with my articles. I figured I’d better add another skill to the resume.

There was a trade off: I made the decision to give up golf, which I was no good at anyway, because I have no chance of making money with my sticks while I might be able to generate funds through photography. It has turned out to be a real money saver. I NEVER lose golf balls while using my cameras.

My cameras are all Nikons: A D90 and D80 for digital work and an N8008 for film stuff. I seldom use color film with my N8008 because I enjoy working with black and white film. Veteran photographers know this but I would advise anyone making the move to a digital Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera to stick with the brand you are already using if you already have a film SLR. The same goes for a digital photographer looking to pick up a film SLR, new or used. The lenses usually transfer from a film camera to a digital unit if the film camera is modern enough to handle lenses that work on a DSLR. If your lenses don’t work on every camera you own, you are stuck with an expensive problem.

I’ve had a lot of luck with my Nikon equipment. I had a D70, which I gave to my son, and another Nikon camera from the F-series years ago. My son is a tremendous photographer but he doesn’t shoot much anymore.

I’m done buying cameras, at least for a while. The D90 represents about as much as I can spend for a camera. I needed a camera with better low-light capability and the D90 is good for that. The D90 also has video capability, but I use smaller cameras for video work. The D80 is excellent as well, but does not work as well as the D90 in low-light conditions.

My lenses include a Nikkor 50mm f1.4, a Tameron 28-75mm f2.8, a Nikon 35-80mm f4-5.6, a Nikkor 70-300mm f4-5.6, a Tokina 70-200mm f2.8, a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 and Tameron 200-400mm f5.6. I’ve been happy with the lenses, mostly. I bought the 200-400mm at a bargain price and got what I paid for.

A very workable beginner’s kit might include a short lens, like my 50mm or my 35-80mm, and an intermediate, such as my 80-200mm or the 70-200mm. You can usually find used lenses like those mentioned for a fair price. Just be sure the lenses and camera work together before you buy them.

I recommend anyone interested in photography look into attending classes at a local community college. That’s what I did and I learned a great deal. I graduated from San Diego State University better than 30 years ago, but went to Ventura (California) College a few years ago and enrolled in Photography 1A. VC has an outstanding program. You get as much out of it as you put into it.

Of course, younger photographers can consider photo-related majors or minors or even just take classes while attending four-year schools.

Most of my experience is in sports photography and in later blogs I’ll write about getting started shooting sports. But for now I’ll just make a blanket recommendation that beginning photographers not be picky about what they shoot. If you have kids, volunteer to photograph their activities. If you are attending a photo class at a school, you have a golden opportunity. As a student, you should be able to photograph any activity on campus, be it sports, concerts or political rallies.

The most important thing is to get accustomed to working with your camera. I call the camera settings my soup: The ISO, shutter speed, aperture, focus mode and metering mode. I leave most of the other stuff alone. Experiment with your soup. Get used to learning what effect various changes make on an image. Do you want less depth of field? More? The beauty of digital photography is that you get real time answers to your questions if you change the soup from image to image.

Believe it or not, getting your hands used to working the camera is part of the learning process. The idea is to be able to make changes to your soup without moving your eye from the view finder.  Since I use three cameras, I sometimes have to remind myself what I’m working with in order to get my hands working properly. That’s another reason to stay with a particular brand of camera; the dials and switches change but not too drastically from model to model.

You can see some of my photo work at www.speedylee.com.

That’s enough for now. Thanks for reading!

LOST

Later, On Same Trip

You are a professional business traveler with skads of experience behind you. Nothing frustrates you because you plan ahead, understand how to be efficient with your time and know how to organize your travel gear.

You have bundles of frequent flier miles, buckets of hotel points and reams of rental car credits. Corporate America is in love with your credit card. And you know that, because of the sheer force of your personality, you will overcome the failings of any lesser functionary that happens to stumble in your way.

Stories? Yeah, you’ve got ‘em. The stories only add to your aura. In fact, you are the most interesting…no, wait a moment. That’s a beer commercial. Never mind.

You rise early one morning to get to the airport and charge off into the early-morning darkness. The pre-dawn hours are your special playground, your advantage over much of the world. You thrive in the small hours. It is then that you are a Legend.

So when the Legend discovers that he forgot his sunglasses, his prescription sun glasses, he does not panic. He calls home (being careful not to call so early as to wake Mrs. Legend before her alarm sounds off) and asks her to send them along. She kindly agrees to do so and the Legend knows he has dodged a problem. Nothing stops this man.

Until he stands up to exit the parking lot shuttle bus at the airport terminal and discovers some other idiot has mistakenly grabbed the Legend’s computer bag and left the idiot’s computer bag on the shuttle. The Legend sounds a bit like Tommy Lasorda after Dave Kingman’s three home run performance against Lasorda’s Dodgers all those decades ago.

After an hour of conferring with TSA officials, airline officials and airport cops at two airline terminals, the traveling Legend contacts the parking lot where the shuttle mix-up began and learns his computer bag has been returned. The bag is on the next bus back to the airport and the Legend considers a second trip through the airport security procedure to be a small price to pay for getting his computer back. Good thing the Legend always arrives at the airport three hours ahead of the scheduled departure of his flight. He congratulates himself on his superior planning.

The next day, this genius gets himself lost in an unmarked area of the Chickamauga National Military Park. He begins calling himself, ‘Gilligan,’ and figures he’d better do a little reading about poison oak and poison ivy sometime soon. He knows he has an excellent map of the Park in his rental car and promises himself that next time he’ll remember to bring it along when he hikes, even if he’s been on the trail before. Undaunted, he congratulates himself on squeezing in a little extra cardiovascular work that day. After taking a three-hour detour, he returns to his rental car.

This man learns from his own mistakes and he has enough credits to score a Masters Degree in something or other on this trip. But the learning’s not over of course. What’s a Masters without a PhD?

A few days later, the Legend eases through the notorious Atlanta morning traffic by rolling through the downtown area at 4:45 a.m. (he’s a Legend, remember?) and checks his bags with more than three hours to spare before his scheduled departure time. This time, nothing can possibly go wrong.

Well, maybe it can. It seems that one of his checked bags did not make the trip. A 40-minute wait in the Baggage Claim area for the dispersal of the bags from his flight ends with the dispersal of one, but not both, of the Legend’s checked bags. The ensuing 25-minute wait in line at the lost bag desk results in a meeting with a very pleasant man who says, “If I knew how it happened, it wouldn’t have happened.”

The Legend agrees with the logic and replies, “I guess that’s why they call them ‘accidents’ and not ‘on purposes.’” “Right,” says the man behind the counter. “What’s a near miss? A near miss is a hit.”

They go on in this vein for a while. The Legend likes the guy behind the counter. The guy behind the counter tells the Legend that the Legend is correct, that the lost bag was put on a later flight, is due in a few hours and will be transported to the Legend’s home as soon as the airline can get it done.

Later that night, Legend was still waiting for his lost bag. Still, he was confident that the bag would arrive soon. After all, the Legend was a man of experience.

And the Legend thanks you for reading.

A long walk at Chickmauga

The S. Carolina Monument.
Horseshoe Ridge is just
inside the trees behind the
monument.

My two days at the Chickamauga National Military Park were very interesting, as you might imagine. The staffers at Chickamauga, from the Rangers to the book store folks, have been very helpful each time I have visited and this time I met Jim Ogden, the park historian.

I was able to go through the files concerning the Confederate unit my ancestor served in and made copies of a number of items which will help me a great deal down the line. Ogden himself is a walking, talking encyclopedia on the subject and he set my thinking straight on several questions I had. I have a much better understanding of the flow of events surrounding my ancestor and the role he played. Ogden is obviously passionate on the topic and it was a joy to listen to him detail how and where I might find more information. This guy knows his stuff.

A Union marker in the foreground
and a Confederate marker behind
it along Horseshoe Ridge.
 One of the last images I captured
before my long walk began.

I trekked around the Park again, just as I did in 2010, but this time I managed to get myself off on the wrong trail and I got lost. Big time lost. Lost as in, “Well, I’m pretty sure I’m still in Georgia, but I’m not positive.” That kind of lost. I recalled the old Cheech and Chong bit: “I know exactly where we are going. We are going downhill.”

This was a Gilligan’s Island deal. I started out walking down a path along Horseshoe Ridge where I have been before. I spent about 20 minutes walking and Nikoning my way along the Ridge before I decided to head back. Three hours later, having walked off Park land and strolled along the middle of a highway in order to stop traffic and ask for directions, I returned to the car. The little stroll included a visit to the Visitors Center and then a final foot-cruise back to the rental car. My 20-minute walk had become a tour (hence the Gilligan reference). My boots split, I acquired a blister on each foot and my shoulders were sore.

The spot, just inside the tree line,
where Confederate General Hood
was wounded.

My shoulders, you ask? How could they be sore? Well, I had taken the opportunity to bring my big, heavy photo backpack with all my equipment for the Ridgeline frolic.

All this on a nice, comfy 90-degree day.

At the end, I arrived in the vicinity of my rental car pretty well worn out. I was a little angry with myself when I arrived at a choice of pathways. Turning right and following the paved road would be a longer distance, maybe 3/8 of a mile to the car and all uphill. Walking straight meant following the path that some of Archibald Gracie’s men took when they stormed the Union line on Hill 1 of Horseshoe Ridge. This was STRAIGHT up an unpaved hill, but a much more direct path to the car.

Gracie's Hill...and mine.

Yes, of course I climbed the hill straight up. This was the path Gracie’s men took. They were from Alabama and I was wearing an Alabama shirt. I charged dramatically.

Truthfully, rather than charging, I sort of lunged. Well, okay, I leaned forward a lot and I had to stop twice. But I made it.

I’m just glad nobody was shooting at me.

Thanks for reading.

Southern storms

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – I should mention that many of the folks here in northern Georgia and southern Tennessee have been hard-hit by the tornados that came through here a few weeks ago. There are people in my hotel who have lost everything to the storms. This was a disaster on American soil and I hope we don’t forget the people impacted.

I met a woman here at the hotel who said she could pull up Minnie balls (a common type of ammunition used during the Civil War) while gardening in her front yard. I checked myself from volunteering to do some gardening for her (I’d love to find a Minnie ball) because she no longer has a garden, a house or anything else.

I have not seen storm damage, except some downed trees at the Chickamauga National Military Park. My travels have not taken me to areas where damage was done and I will not drive through those areas just to see someone’s heartache.

Our relatives in Alabama got through the storms okay. Some were without power for several days. But others in Alabama were not so lucky.

On top of the storms, now we have the annual Mississippi River flooding. It has been especially bad this season up north is expected to be bad here, too.

One thing they believe in here is the power of prayer. If you pray, I hope you’ll remember those hit hard by these recent natural events.

Thanks for reading.

Los Angeles Dodgers: Mom for owner

Years ago, when I was in the newspaper business, I wrote a column recommending my mother be selected as the next commissioner of baseball. This was in the 1980s and with the 20-20 vision accorded us by the passing of time it is clear that mom would have done a better job than the parade of yes men who have held that job since then.

Well, a new job is opening up and baseball had better listen this time: The commissioner, the guy who now holds the job mom should have, needs to name my mother as the managing owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Mom was an elementary school teacher for 30 years. She taught second grade all that time, giving her excellent training for dealing with the players, the players union, the media and the other owners. Heck, all those years of playground duty qualify her to be named to the United States Supreme Court.

Understand this: Mother loves baseball. She understands the infield fly rule. She knows the difference between the run-and-hit and the hit-and-run, but her favorite play is the squeeze bunt.

Mom had the most disciplined classroom in the history of organized education. If a pin dropped, you could hear it apologize for making a sound. Mom didn’t (and still doesn’t) tolerate exhibitions of disrespect. She was named Teacher of the Year in her area of the Los Angeles Unified School District one year and I thought they should have retired the award.

Mom would bring something to the Dodgers that the franchise has lacked for a while now. She’d be an owner with unquestionable integrity and loyalty to the ballclub. She’s been a Dodgers fan since they were in Brooklyn. She'd also bring a forward-looking emphasis on product quality to ownership, something the Dodgers haven’t had since the O’Malleys ran things.

I can just see some rookie throwing a fit after looking at a called third strike. The umpire would toss the kid out of the game and the National League would fine him. And then mom would bring the youngster into her office so she could hear his side of things. The kid would finish with, “So I did what I had to do.”

And it would get quiet in that office for a while. Then mom would say, “This is Major League Baseball. We don’t throw our shoes into the grandstand. We’re sending you down to Spokane for some seasoning. While you’re there, you’ll send a letter of apology to the fan whose hot dog was squashed when you threw your batting helmet. You’ll also attend Mrs. Larson’s School of Etiquette in Spokane so you will not act like such a fool in public anymore. While you’re up there, I hope you’ll learn to throw to the cutoff man, too.”

Eventually, under mom’s guidance, the Dodgers’ franchise would return to respectability. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Thanks for reading and Happy Mother’s Day!

Planning Chickamauga

A Union cannon sits atop Horseshoe
Ridge at Chickamauga.

I am heading for Georgia next week. It’s a business trip. I’ll be working for Goodyear at the NHRA drag race at The Atlanta Dragway Thursday through Sunday. I haven’t been to a race in Atlanta in several years and I have never been to the Dragway. I always look forward to visiting new tracks.

The first few days of the trip will be spent along the Georgia-Tennessee border at the Chickamauga battlefield park. It’s the oldest Civil War battlefield park in the system. I’ll be researching the actions of the unit an ancestor of ours belonged to. Our ancestor was wounded during that battle. I’ll have my trusty Nikon with me and I hope to photograph the areas where the family history was involved.

This is my second visit to Chickamauga. I was there in March of 2010 and caught some images of the same areas I want to walk and study this year.

Chickamauga is a somber place for me to visit. It is, after all, the site of a very bloody battle where a lot of men lost their lives and many more, like my kinsman, were wounded. I visit with great enthusiasm but I walk with great respect.

In order to save time I have a list of the locations that I think I want to photograph. I’ll arrive with a very systematic plan. Typically I abandon the systematic approach about an hour after my arrival because I’ll notice something not included in my plan and I’ll spend time setting up a photo of the new area. That happened frequently at Gettysburg last summer.

The South Carolina Memorial
near Horseshoe Ridge at
Chickamauga.

I read a bit about the battle of Chickamauga before I visited the battlefield last year and I bought a battle map from the Alabama Department of Archives and History to study. Now that I’ve been there and know what things look like, the map makes sense and I can picture mentally what I’m reading about. That has made planning this year’s trip easier.

I’ll carry my Nikon D90 and four lenses, plus a monopod. I have a huge backpack specifically designed for carrying photographic gear and I’ll have all my stuff in it. I can carry two cameras in the backpack but this time I’ll probably bring just the one.

When I return to Gettysburg in June, I’ll probably add my N8008 film camera to the load. We’ll be there a longer time than the three days I’ll be at Chickamauga and I’ll have time to use the second camera. There is something about shooting with black and white film that is pleasing to me but I have found that using two cameras requires a great deal more time than I’ll have next week.

If you visit Chickamauga, I advise you start with the Visitors Center. The Rangers are very helpful and I found the people in the bookstore to be friendly. There is an excellent display of long guns – rifles – as well, some dating back to the earliest such weapons. There is a small theater that shows short films about the battle.

The battle of Chickamauga took place roughly 10 weeks after the battle of Gettysburg. Chickamauga was a two-day fight that resulted in a Confederate victory. It also resulted in a serious leg wound from which my great, great grandfather never fully recovered. He limped for the remainder of his life.

I’ll try to post some images from Chickamauga after my visit there. In the mean time…

Thanks for reading.

Needed: An inner circle

It occurred to me tonight that I do not have an inner circle.

We know from watching the TV news and reading the newspaper that presidents have inner circles and governors have them. When network television broke the news that President Obama would soon be on television with the news that Osama bin Laden was dead, the reporters referred frequently to bin Laden’s inner circle.

Gee, I grumped. Bad guys have an inner circle, but I don’t. I spent eight months serving on the Ventura County Board of Education, an important political office, but even that experience failed to net me an inner circle. Obviously, I need one.

I began taking steps to correct this terrible failure on my part. I asked my wife if she would join my inner circle. She answered, “Huh?” Bad start. Members of my inner circle must do a better job of anticipating my thinking than giving me a blank look and asking, ‘Huh?’

“My inner circle,” I answered. “Presidents have one, bin Laden had one. I don’t.”

“Does this have something to do with that blog thing? Do I have to join something?” I assured her that, no, she need not join anything except the inner circle itself. She agreed.

Excellent. I was on my way. I’m sure my mother will want to be a member of my inner circle and maybe my sister, too. I’ll ask them. Not too sure about our kids, since both moved 2,500 miles away from us within the last few years. They probably do not want to join their Dad’s inner circle. They’d live closer if they did. So I’ll make up a list for myself (which is something I’d like my inner circle to do for me in the future) and then I’ll go over the names on the list.

I also need to figure out what I want my inner circle to do. Never had one before, don’t know what they do (except that they make up lists). I’m too cheap to let someone else manage our money and too stubborn to let others make decisions for me. So that stuff is out.

I guess we’ll have meetings. We’ll sit around the kitchen table and discuss matters important to me. We don’t have a table in our kitchen and I seldom attend meetings, but we’ll work something out. I’ve read that presidents have something called a ‘kitchen cabinet,’ which is another term for ‘inner circle.’ Obviously we have kitchen cabinets, but they are very small. The cabinets we have are just big enough to hold our dishes and would never be big enough to hold an inner circle meeting.

Maybe we can meet by teleconference or on Skype. I’m sure my inner circle will operate smoothly using very modern methods, although I’m an old-school kind of guy. I guess we could meet via text, instant message or in a private chat room. My computer, I think, would fit in the kitchen cabinet.

Maybe I can sell sponsorship for my inner circle in order to pay for all these meetings. The travel will probably be expensive. I know one thing; Lee Elder Public Relations will be the Official Publicist of Lee Elder’s Inner Circle.

No need to make a list for that.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have an inner circle.