Go Johnnie Go…the life we’ve lived
Johnnie, stripped of his clothes and shoes, was running naked as a jaybird, stepping on prickly pears, blood running from his nostrils as it does with racehorses when extreme exertion causes the lung tissue to hemorrhage. Basically Johnnie was trying to escape from the maw of death. I suppose we all have made runs such as this, in some form, at some point in our lives. A run of shame, a hasty
Cabrini Green
yet nimble retreat down rickety back stairs; a young, clothes clutching lad, who was running towards his certain demise at the Cabrini-Green public housing project in Chicago, scooped up by a haloed, trash truck driving savior; the tire iron and croquet mallet wielding miscreants chasing an innocent Dodger fan through the parking lot of Jack Murphy stadium. These events are all too common in this day and age where unshirted zealotry is coupled with a bovine lack of curiosity, where imaginations are used more than memory, and where charm and reliability rarely come in the same package .
But Johnnie’s issues did not come from this day and age. Johnnie Colter’s issues were from 1808 when this fur trapper, mountain man extraordinaire, member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and first person of European descent to enter the region now known as Yellowstone National Park, met up with some Blackfoot Indians in a liverish mood. While canoeing up the Jefferson River he and his partner John Potts ran into several hundred Blackfoot who motioned them to the side of the river. Johnnie went ashore where he was forced to nude up by the Indians, but Potts tried to get away.
He was riddled with arrows like a sewer’s pin-cushion and his body was brought to shore where it was hacked to small pieces. Johnnie thought his fate was going to be the same as his buddy Potts, but no. The chief, after much council, thought he would make a game of it. Telling Johnnie to dash, it all became clear – John Colter was in for the run of his life. He was given a two hundred yard head start then chased by 300 young warriors full of menace. Johnnie had to hear their horrid war whoops closing in behind him and probably thought he had as much chance to outrun the young bucks as Donna Summer did getting into the 
Rock-n-Roll hall of fame (actually she made it in 2013 ….so weird.) He looked back and saw that the chasing Indians had scattered and he had gained ground on the main body of his pursuers with the exception of one brave who was within 50 yards. By this time he had run 6 miles and could still hear the footsteps close behind him.
Suddenly Johnnie stopped, turned around, and spread his arms. The Indian, totally surprised by the 
suddenness of his action, and perhaps because of Johnnie’s bloody appearance, also came to a halt, but tripped and fell to the ground, his spear breaking at the blade. Johnnie grabbed the blade section and impaled the Brave onto God’s good earth. The trailing Indians saw what occurred and increased their pursuit with renewed vigor and vengeance.
Johnnie ran like few of us ever have, eventually jumping into the freezing Madison River, where he hid in cottonwoods 
and beaver dens to survive. He walked, climbed high snow covered peaks, and ran for eleven more days, usually at night, until he finally arrived at a trading post on the Little Big Horn. His life had been won. In the end the wild life of the Mountain Man lost its attraction, and Johnnie fell back to St. Louis where he found his wife and found his last days.
We all have friends like Johnnie who are bold with adventure, who percolate in their own vitality – and we are better for them. We all have friends that have found themselves in difficult situations (usually self made) where things could have gone terribly wrong, but now are just good stories. 
Some have been forced to run for their lives, either figuratively or literally, and their thunder-clap stories enhance us and shield us from the winds of normalcy. So let us toast to the gallant, to the foolish, to those who defy slumber, to those with affections and afflictions, to those who shirk the mundane, to those who bring smiles and head shakes to us with their exploits. So here is a toast to Johnnie Colter and to our wonderful friends. Groove
and Bat never used the High Five after dispatching a deserving bad guy and putting him six feet under, because the High Five was invented by the great Glenn Burke in 1977 ( Great? Batting avg .237, Hr 2 , RBI 38 ). Glenn was a Major League Baseball player for the Dodgers and Oakland A’s from 1976 to 1979 . Burke was the first and perhaps only Major League Baseball player known to have acknowledged his homosexuality to teammates and management and the first to do so publicly. Burke’s association with the Dodgers was a difficult one. According to Glenn’s 1995 autobiography “Out at Home,” Dodgers General Manager Al Campanis
An article published in Inside Sports magazine in 1982 made Burke’s gay life public knowledge. After baseball, Burke turned to drugs and alcohol which destroyed him both financially and physically. He was repeatedly arrested for alcohol and drug offenses and lived on the streets of San Francisco. On May 30th,1995 he died of AIDS complications. He was 42 years old.
Dodgers have a 15 1/2 game lead on the lowly last place Giants with the San Diego Padres desperately trying not to dip into the basement while pondering still another uniform change (Can you say branding?). The Dodgers have had the same uniform for 70 years.
honeyed voice of Vin Scully, (calling the Dodger games since 1950 …. “He’s a left handed batter and we understand his father makes wind chimes out of used toothpicks”) and loving the Dodgers, and the game of baseball, we are all lucky to be part of this wonderful ride of 2013. Go Dodgers!
Talk about getting burned. Nobody got more toasted than Israel Bissell. And who was this fine gentleman? No, not a “Jewish Vacuum Cleaner”, but a postal rider from Massachusetts who on April 19th, 1775 took off from Watertown, Mass. and for four days through five states Izzy warned the colonists of a invasion by the
sense of urgency and a call for action. History favors the courageous (as does eating: first guy to eat a clam or a lobster ) and Hank wanted to get the word out and stir up the pro-union sentiments. (Don’t know how much Hank Longfellow stirred us with ” Song of Hiawatha ” except to make us drink more Hamm’s Beer.) So Longfellow wanted to write a poem that would capture his opinion and capture this “hour of darkness and peril and need.” The problem was that the name Israel Bissell just didn’t have the rhyming scheme nor the flair of Paul Revere. Remember that Hank is writing this poem some 85 years after the ride and people sort of forgot how it all went down. Even when Paul died in 1818 there was no mention in his obit about “His Historic Ride” just that he had a good business sense, made nice silver punch bowls, and was a cool guy.
really who could forget “Kicks” or “Indian Reservation ( the lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)” and what does Israel Bissell get? Maybe a country named after him or a vacuum company, but that’s a big reach. Perhaps just that we know Israel Bissell was a cool patriot and let’s think, what rhymes with Israel Bissell? Groove.
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