Comment

Comment by Kayla Briseno on November 12, 2012 at 8:11am

Hey there, Barry!

You know how much my students and I love your blog!  I thought I'd share a really cool blog that also has great (visual) writing prompts for students and teachers.  Check it out: writingprompts.tumblr.com .  Enjoy!

Your friend in China,

Kayla

Comment by Kayla Briseno on January 15, 2012 at 10:01am

:)  Yahoo!  Can't wait!!  Thanks for always sharing your ideas and pieces with us!!

Comment by Barry Lane on January 15, 2012 at 9:35am

Gee, I was waiting for you to say something, Kayla.

I'll get back on the horse.

Comment by Kayla Briseno on January 15, 2012 at 6:15am

Ok, Barry, it's been a long time.  My students and I are dying to read more of your pieces on the 1000 things to write about blog!

Comment by Barry Lane on January 19, 2011 at 3:40pm

Go Reds.  Isn't it fun how the things we hated become the things we love.

 

Thanks Julie.

Comment by Julie Koontz on January 19, 2011 at 3:07pm

Baseball. Is there anything worse for a teenage girl who is not athletic than to be dragged to game after game with her family?! At least that's what I thought, at 14, and being forced to go to watch the Cincinnati Reds play with my Mom, my seven-year-old sister and three family friends. I couldn't really focus on the games because I was too busy wishing someone would come and take me away from all this torture. Eventually though, I started getting into the games and watching what the players were doing. And even more surprising, I actually started talking about the games! I was enjoying myself, even having a great time. I got so involved in these games that I began to watch movies that had a baseball theme; Field of Dreams, Major League, Angels in the Outfield, and Rookie of the Year, to name a few. Every time these movies are on tv, I have to watch them, it's like a compulsion. They remind me of all those trips and me cheering on my team. Now I remember those Reds games as fond memories spent with my family and friends. To this day, 35 years later, I still have a fondness for the Cincinnati Reds. Thanks Mom!

Comment by Barry Lane on January 19, 2011 at 2:44pm

Oh Gloria,

You Dad spiked the radio. I know the feeling. It is the helpless rage of the spectator. Coaches feel it too. Thanks for sharing!

Comment by Gloria Pipkin on January 19, 2011 at 2:02pm

I was born a Florida Gator, when my dad was at the University of Florida on the GI bill after returning from WWII. This hardly qualifies as a "great moment" in the traditional sense, but I still remember it vividly, 60-something years after the event. Dad had graduated, and we were back in the tiny northwest Florida town where both my parents were born and raised. He remained an avid Gator fan, although they rarely won in the only sport that counted then--football. Long before we had a television, radio was our medium of entertainment--and intense engagement--every Saturday afternoon in the fall, when we listened to the games.  At a very young age, I learned to visualize the game from the inimitable play-by-play accounts of Otis Boggs, "the voice of the Gators." One unforgettable aftrnoon, when the Gators were being humiliated yet again, and even Otis was despairing, my dad took the small portable radio--the only radio we owned--and smashed it on the sidewalk in front of our little house.  I'm not sure just what the moral of this story is/was, but for months after that we went to my grandparents' house to listen to the games until we could afford to replace the radio. 

 

Although my dad's fierce spirit was more than a bit scary to my mother, sister, and me at times, it has served him--and us--well in other ways. At 88, he's now in late stages of Alzheimer's, still ambulatory (although a bit shaky) more than six years after he was diagnosed with the insidious disease.  He has not gone gentle into that good night. Keep raging, Dad.