With just about the perfect persona, and a perfect western drawl, a sports analyst on national TV was talking about an upcoming Texas/Oklahoma college football game.
“Nothin’ sets hair on fire more than seeing your biggest rival out there on the football field”, I recall the sports analyst saying.
In the game of baseball, too, nothing sets hair on fire more than the San Francisco Giants taking on their arch rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, in the first game of the National League Division Series. That was a big game, last Friday, on the Giants’ home turf.
The starting pitcher for San Francisco had his stuff. His ‘mechanics,’ as they say in baseball, were spot-on. Almost every pitch was a gem.
In the game of politics, the nation’s former president, Donald Trump, has been pitching his array of insults at anyone who doesn’t see things his way. Just recently, he was calling Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse — a Republican — a “loser,” a “sleazebag,” and a “quiet little boy.”
At his rally in Iowa, last Saturday, he was pitching even more vitriol at more folks.
But in contrast to all that, there was an article, in the Arizona Daily Star, about a 4,200 mile road trip that revealed something, perhaps, unexpected and refreshing about the nation’s character.
While visiting “cities small and large, like Tulsa, Lexington, Montgomery, Vicksburg, and Mattoon, Illinois,” the guest commentary writer, Rick Unklesbay, spoke with folks in all walks of life. And “not once, with anyone, did the conversation turn to politics or that our country was divided,” he noted. “Instead we spoke about the love they had for their communities.”
At the Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Mr. Unklesbay “met college students who were the docents at this stunningly beautiful yet sobering reflection on racial injustice. They wanted to make sure I soaked in the full impact of the history of injustice displayed there.”
The retired prosecutor and news junkie, as he’s described in the Daily Star, “returned home to Tucson with a different vision of America than when I’d left… people are good and honest, warm and welcoming. I feel better about our future.”
While the poet William Wordsworth’s words — “the world is too much with us” — might best describe our impressions of what’s going on these days, maybe we’re actually much better than we think.
And after pitching so many insults at so many people, maybe President #45 is getting a little fatigued? Maybe his mechanics are off? Maybe his stuff isn’t what it used to be?
As they say in sports, maybe it’s time to hang up his cleats?
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.