* * Not going to any more college basketball games

Here's an open letter I'm sending to Virginia Tech Athletic Director Jim Weaver.

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Dear Mr. Weaver,
 
I am a basketball fan and a Virginia Tech graduate. I have had season tickets to Hokie games for several years. I love the athleticism and intensity.
However, I plan to never buy another ticket. Here’s why.
Being from SWVA, I’m not much of a hockey fan. But in 2004, I was in Alberta, Canada, on a motorcycle tour. The home team Calgary Flames were playing game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals versus the Tampa Bay Lightning. If Calgary won, it was over. If Tampa Bay won, it would go to game seven back in Florida. Seemingly, everyone in the province was watching, either in person or on TV. The game was nearing the end and it was a one-point game. With three minutes left in the game – you won’t believe this – the game ended in three minutes. It was amazingly exciting.
The night before last, I watched Tech lose to UVA at Cassell Coliseum. It isn’t the loss that bothered me. Every game has one winner and one loser. The effort on both sides was tremendous and the play was intense. 
The problem is that monied interests have overwhelmed the game and the flow of excitement is constantly interrupted.
First of all, the game started at 9:00 p.m. and lasted past 11:00 p.m., on a school night. This was clearly done because the television folks had another game to televise first.
Second, there are multiple “media” time-outs, giving the TV and radio networks a chance to sell Dodge Ram 4 X 4s and Budweiser to home audiences.
Third, there are way too many team time outs. As you know, in televised games each team gets one 60-second and four 30-second timeouts and in non-televised games each team gets four 75-second and two 30-second timeouts per game. What the heck do the coaches need to talk about? Towards the end of close games, coaches literally call every play. These are college student athletes. Shouldn’t they be taught to make decisions for themselves? 
If this weren’t enough, whenever a player fouls out, his team gets another time out so the coaches can huddle together, scratch their heads, and make the apparently mind-wracking decision who to substitute.
It’s interminable! The last three minutes of close games take 20 minutes or longer.
While this is going on, we in the stands are treated to a constant barrage of flying female cheerleaders, mindless games (“Identify this face!” “Yes, it’s Mister Rogers!!!” “You win a T-shirt!!!!”), and blasting noise from the loudspeakers. 
I pay $35 per ticket – almost a dollar per minute of play – to watch my team play basketball… and I’m treated as an afterthought!

I understand this is not about Tech or the Cassell specifically, but about how the tail (big money) wags the dog (college sports) to the detriment of the sport and the fans. (Although the reported attendance to the game was 9,656 in a building which seats 9,847, which is absurd. There were thousands of unoccupied seats including most of the row I sit in.) I would be very surprised if attendance nationally wasn’t dropping year-by-year.
It’s time for the game to dominate the spectacle and the fan to be treated with more respect. I won’t be back until this happens.

Sincerely,

Michael Abraham
BS Mechanical Engineering, ‘76

* * My books go to a new level, or not

There’s an old saying that everybody has a novel in them. Certainly we all have a life story, and others have shared their life stories with us. And many of us have imagined other stories. But I know from personal experience that getting those stories onto paper is no mean feat.

When I began writing seriously three years ago, I quickly learned that ‘professional’ writing is a completely free-form activity; there are few rules and they are always changing. So I’m always in search of ways to learn how to do it better. Two recent events are illustrative of my status.

Last week, I was a featured speaker at a meeting of the Virginia Tech Faculty Women’s Reading Club to talk about my three books and the processes I’ve used in researching and writing them. I’ve had the opportunity to do many presentations, but this was unusual in that most in my audience of around 30 had already read my first book, The Spine of the Virginias. It’s about the formation of West Virginia from Virginia during the Civil War and of the people and culture on the contemporary border. Many in my audience were already familiar with my work.

I enjoy public speaking and I feel like I do a good job of conveying the enthusiasm I have for my topics. Afterwards, I was able to sell several of my other two books, and they gave me a nice gift.  It was a totally pleasurable way to spend an hour.

Then on Friday and Saturday, I attended the Fifth Annual Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins University. I’ve been to every one of them, and its always a great way to learn more about the craft, see old friends and meet new ones, and trade ideas. What I’ve come to increasingly conclude is that writing and writers come in all shapes and sizes. It is a completely free-form craft.

First, there are several major groupings: fiction, non-fiction, essays, blogs, plays, and more. Then there are subsets. For example, in fiction there are short stories and full length novels. There is young adult fiction, children’s fiction, science fiction, and fantasy. Non-fiction has a similar diversity of genres, from history, to travel, biography, science, inspirational, how-to, and more. There are conventional books (softcover and hardcover), e-books and audio books.

Second, this is the best of times and the worst of times to be a writer. Computers are ubiquitous and the Internet gives anybody that has one the ability to produce and widely disseminate the written word. The good news is that anybody can reach a wide audience. The bad news is that some people aren’t skilled at it and can produce lots of inferior work. The other bad news is that the folks who are good at it are often not compensated well for it.

In bygone days, the primary avenue for young writers to cut their teeth on writing, so to speak, was newspapers, where under the tutelage of peers and editors, an emerging writer could be schooled in the craft. Nowadays, many newspapers are hurting financially and opportunities are diminishing.

What this all boils down to is that it is exceedingly difficult to make much money, not to mention a decent or exceptional income, from writing.

My most recent book is Harmonic Highways, about traveling Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, The Crooked Road. I interviewed a number of musicians. One told me that making real money in music was almost unheard of, especially in Bluegrass. “We play for the fun. If we can sell some CDs and make enough money to pay for our strings and some gas, we’re happy.” He said a few people made lots of money, but “they are really talented, have worked really hard, and have gotten really lucky.” I realized it is much the same with writers.

I’m closing in on the first draft of my fourth book, a novel set in the area around Galax and Fries. My first three books were published by Pocahontas Press, a 25-year old Blacksburg publisher that my wife and I purchased from the heirs of the founder, Mary Holliman, when she died a year and a half ago. I’ve been thinking that it would be grand to get an agent for the next book and shop it with the big publishing houses with national distribution. I heard something at the Convention that is causing me to re-evaluate.

One speaker is a reasonably accomplished writer with several books on the market. She works feverishly full-time on her books, yet admitted that she makes half the money she formerly made nursing. Plus, the publisher’s editors are intensely demanding, often insisting she almost completely re-write her manuscripts before they’ll print them.

Right now, I have great rapport with my readers. They often say nice things about the places my books take them and the things they learn. I’m selling in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands. But I have control of my books. I do most of my own graphic design. I have editors who work for almost nothing, simply for the pleasure of the work and the recognition I give them in the Acknowledgements. Because there are fewer middle-men, I can keep more of the selling cost. Fortunately, I have another source of income, so I’m not dependent upon sales of books to put food on the table.

More sales would be nice, especially for the implied legitimacy. But I’m beginning to conclude that perhaps my current situation is the best of most, if not all, worlds

* * Walking an icy trail

If I had advertised for a companion on this hike, it would have gone something like this: “Inveterate hiker looking for accompaniment on a cold, wet, icy, dismal trail. Expect no views, slippery walking conditions, dense fog. Eleven miles. Strenuous.” I wonder who would have responded.

And yet I did have a companion last weekend on a hike on the loop trail into Rock Castle Gorge at Rocky Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway on the border of Floyd and Patrick Counties. Jonathan, a new friend who lives not far from me in Blacksburg came along.

We drove to Floyd, then Tuggles Gap, then down the other side, parking at the trailhead at the bottom. I’ve done this hike before and it is always easier to get the hard stuff out of the way first. One other car arrived shortly after we did and a lone woman hit the trail first. We never saw her (or anyone else) after that.

The weather, as I mentioned, was thick in fog and just above freezing. The trail enters a thick Appalachian temperate hardwood forest and begins climbing almost immediately. The climbing becomes increasingly steep and I was glad Jonathan had talked me into carrying trekking poles. A sheen of sleet covered the fallen leaves masking the trail. Just keeping my balance and moving forward required considerable effort, and I wore only a single long-sleeved shirt because of the exertion.

Jonathan is 25 years my junior. Like me, he majored in Mechanical Engineering. But I struggled mightily to earn my bachelors degree. He earned a doctorate. We were introduced by a classmate of mine who also earned a doctorate.

The climbing became quite intense, with some hand-over-hand scrambling over wet, slippery rocks. Eventually, the incline moderated, a brief respite in a dense forest, before the ascending continued. We broke into the open, wind-swept field that Parkway drivers see on their way up the mountain from Tuggles. Rather than the typical expansive views, we were enveloped by fog. Plus, rime ice grew from every twig of every tree or bush. These “rime-sicles” grew 1-1/2” long, thin, like the fin of a fish, away from the direction of the wind. Being in the wind and at high elevation, it was dramatically colder, and Jonathan and I donned all our weather gear.

We walked past the parking lot at “The Saddle” seeing no cars whatsoever. Then we ascended to the little stone and log hut that normally offers an outstanding view to the south. We saw nothing but white. We took a lunch break inside the hut, but there was a layer of rime ice on everything and it was wicked freezing cold. He tried to heat some water for tea over a small backpacker’s stove, but it never heated enough to steep the tea. After fifteen minutes or so, I insisted we leave as my hands were uncomfortably cold and I was beginning to shiver. Walking again, my body heat worked to my extremities and I was fine again. 

The trail stays near the top of the ridge for several miles before breaking sharply downhill. There is normally a good view of the FloydFest site, but we could still see no more than 50 feet in the fog. As we descended, we abruptly left the frozen zone, making it easy to see exactly where it was 32F.

I always learn a lot about my companions when hiking with them, because there is much time to chat. Jonathan is from Tennessee. While I was hiking and backpacking for as long as I can remember, Jonathan is a newcomer to the outdoor world. He was happy to be living in the New River Valley because of all the outdoor opportunities.

We talked about college and families and pastimes. In my advanced years, I had traveled to several places he expressed interest in going. What I had in experience he had in youthful enthusiasm. There would be more places to visit together.

The trail ends with a long walk beside Rock Castle Creek, gently downhill, where the Park Service has thoughtfully provided bridges where necessary.

We ended the trip with me still feeling good, with fewer of the aches and pains I expected. Driving home, we decided it was the type of hike only a hiker could enjoy. But we certainly did!

* * Talking politics on Facebook

One of the interesting aspects of social media is the opportunity it provides to re-connect with long-lost friends and acquaintances. Facebook has brought me back in touch with people I knew way back in college, when, as I joke, dinosaurs still roamed Tech’s Drillfield.

One of those individuals is a man who now lives in Pennsylvania. He has baited me into a detailed conversation about politics. It started innocently enough in November and it has gone on irregularly since then, limited mostly by the amount of time either of us is willing to devote on futile attempts to convert each other. I will say that in making these exchanges, I have had a chance to critically examine my own positions and find logical and hopefully compelling ways of justifying and proffering them.

He first wrote, “I guess I wanted you to be aware there's a bunch of Christians who are trying to figure out a way to get beyond the current stand-off in America and gridlock in Congress. It would be nice to find a way to cooperate, but I don't know what that would look like, given the contempt on both sides.”

No fault in that statement!

Then he asked me about the pending Senate bill to imprison US terrorist suspects without due process. It quickly became a point/counterpoint exchange, with him generally taking the conservative bent and me generally the liberal.

He asked, “What's underneath your political energy? My political energy is driven by an underlying ideology (Christian) and my family of origin (not so-much Republican, but strongly conservative).”

Too deep a question for me! I’m just motivated to ensure that everyone has equal access to health, welfare, happiness and prosperity. So I asked him what he thought was the greatest threat to that.

“Big Government.” And, “Some conservatives believe the only fix is for Obama to win a second term so that America will fall apart completely… the ‘falling apart’ being the only ‘truth’ that will convince enough Americans to turn things around from their current left-ward spiral.”

Whether our nation is in a left-ward spiral, a right-ward spiral, or no spiral at all, is, I suppose, in the eyes of the beholder. And how big should Government be? I think it should be big enough to provide the things the people ask of it, which these days is principally defense, social welfare (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and prescription drug programs), infrastructure, pensions, health care, education, foreign aid, and debt payment. I’m sure many of these programs were fought tooth-and-nail at the time they were instituted, as many of them are now. But the irony of signs seen at Tea Party rallies saying things like, “Keep your big government hands off my Social Security,” shouldn’t be lost on any of us.

He is definitely of the opinion that governments traditionally do more harm than free markets. He wrote, “However, free markets do evil. Free markets have limited ability to fix societal evils. I know this. I agree with you. However, historically and currently, more evils come from big governments than free markets.” He thinks our government has too much control over corporations and I think corporations have too much control over our government. He thinks if government had its way, we’d all be impoverished slaves. I think if corporations had their way, they’d eliminate all worker, consumer, and environmental protections and we’d live in a polluted wasteland.

We did find some agreement in that there is way too much waste, fraud, and abuse in government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. But this is not a political issue and neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have fashioned a lasting solution.

On and on it has gone. He deserves the final word in this most astute observation, “You and I are intelligent, high-functioning guys and yet we are at opposite poles on politics. We are well-read and moral people, yet we violently disagree.” That we can have these disagreements is surely one of the most positive things we can say about this great country that both of us love.

* * Wishing everyone a Happy New Year

I'm furiously working on book #4, a novel set in Southwest Virginia called, "Providence, VA". So I haven't had time to think about a blog entry. Please bear with me.