March Family Matters

All this underdog talk brings me to another reason to celebrate March Madness. Besides Hooly's birthday, St. Patrick's Day, and basketball – it’s a time to pay tribute to my dad. Born on March 19 and Grandma Farley. Born on March 24.

Bill's high school career was undistinguished. That's his yearbook photo, Cretin High School, class of 1936. Few accomplishments. Did not excel academically or on the athletic field. He was tall and skinny and had size 14 feet. His ambition was noted as: "to go on a good tear."

Like many of his grandsons who came much later, high school was legislated detention. Something to be endured until you were set free to start living. But he was a natural salesman, a superb organizer and had great social connections. He knew everyone and knew how to have a good time. I'm told he rented halls, booked bands and threw great parties. Which is how he came to meet my mother.

Dad booked the Bob Farley band for a party and started hanging out with Bob and his friends at Dutch Lake. That's dad in the back, Bob in the middle and my mom, Mary, Bob's sister, in front. Apparently, Bob's mother took a shine to young Bill and decided that he would be perfect for Mary. Some matchmaking ensued and later marriage.


Gramma – Mary Gleason – wasn’t the most gorgeous young woman in Bayfield, Wisconsin, but, she was definitely the most vivacious. Like her future son-in-law, socializing was her milieu. At a big lumberyard fire one night, she met the young newcomer, E.T. Farley. A schoolteacher from Oswego, New York. Sparks flew. A wedding resulted. 9 children followed.









If you assessed my dad or my grandma when they were young, you probably wouldn’t vote them most likely to succeed. Looks, money, athletic prowess, and academic honors. Who cares. Work with what you’ve got. Enjoy the moment. Five years after high school graduation, no one’s going to remember that someone else got the volleyball award senior year and you didn’t.

Bill Nagan barely made rank in a military high school but he got the girl and had a great life. Mary Gleason wasn’t valedictorian, couldn’t cook, could barely sew but she lived to be 98. And she must have had a great time along the way. Because every book she gave me was inscribed with her flowery script: “. . . from her grandmother, Mary E. D. Farley. Pray for me.”

The Triumph of the Underdog.

And I'm not talking about a cartoon. I'm talking about basketball.

Unless you've been on a media blackout, or not paying attention to the office e-mails with the words "March Madness" or "Office Pool" in the title you know that we're in the middle of the biggest basketball month of the year. Not just NCAA Men's and Women's Tournaments but the State Basketball Title. Non-stop action for three weeks--on the court and off--and I'm talking gambling, not what some of you are thinking.

Don't ask me why I love basketball. I don't even understand most of the rules. Ball goes in hoop. Points are scored. Refs blow whistles. Mayhem ensues. Maybe it's the cute outfits and the collegiate colors. Or maybe it's the emotional frenzy, the pep band and the antics of the mascots. Grown man dressed in a Gopher suit? It could even be the absolute beauty of a perfect 3-point shot.


Maybe because there's no sure winner. Or maybe it's because a #11 ranked team can blow out a #1 ranked team and make it to the Final Four. The Underdog story of the century (so far) -- little George Mason University (who's even heard of them?) beat #6 Michigan State; then they pummeled #3 NCU. Then they shut down #7 Wichita State and if that wasn't enough they stunned #1 University of Connecticut in overtime on Sunday afternoon. I could hardly sit still to watch it! This year all the #1 teams got squashed. Grown men sent home crying. I love it.


Closer to home, DeLaSalle took the State title by beating Duluth East. Early in the season, my sister, Rita, and I watched De get their butts kicked from one end of the court to the other. Talk about underdogs, De was whole team of little guys up against big, corn-fed country boys. Oh my, I thought. Not this year.

But no. Somehow, by the end of the season, the little guys prevailed. Even their coach seemed surprised, "This isn't the most talented team I've had at DeLaSalle, but. . . " But they won. Anything can happen for the underdogs. To quote De guard, Cameron Rundles, "we just were tough. We are kind of undersized, but heart doesn't have a height."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love basketball.

Just a thought

Last night, during a two hour time span, 35 million votes were cast for American Idol. 35 million votes in two effing hours! I nominate Cingular to set up "Vote-by-Phone" for the next presidential election. Even the stupid could make it to the polls.

Currently listening to: The gnashing of teeth over Chicken Little's departure from A.I.
Enjoying: Hash browns and poached eggs.

There's a lot of that going around

Yes, they are. They're everywhere. From the highways and byways of our cities and towns, rolling through stop signs, yakking on their cell phones. To the grocery store. Clogging up the Express Check out when they have a cart piled high with processed food. Tell me, what is it about "10 items or fewer" that you don't understand. Illiterate? Or merely rude? They're in public places with their overindulged and ill-behaved children. Their shared family value is a belief that rules do not apply to them. Excuse me, here in MadgeWorld, we say, "get that little schitzu under control before I do it for you."

I worry about this country sometimes. Not just our lack of political leadership or that the dollar isn't worth sh** anymore, or that Cher hasn't really retired or that Saturday Night Live just plain isn't funny. No, it's that people are stupid. I don't mean they are uneducated, because educated people can be amazingly smart and amazingly stupid and devoid of common sense at the same time. I mean they are uninterested. They just don't care. Sadly, the General Public's collective IQ is falling faster than Pamela Anderson's fake boobs.

Do I sound elitist? I hope not. I'm not even a Republican. Stupid people can fall on both sides of the political aisle. Why, just today on NPR I heard an interview with a woman who had just seen Dick Cheney, in person, at a fund-raiser somewhere in Ohio. "I couldn't tell you what he said," she gushed, "it was a thrill to see him. I really feel like an American." Like a Visa card, they're everywhere you want to be. And hard to avoid.

That's why MadgeWorld is so comforting. Visit anytime.

But first, tell me about your encounters with stupidity. Just one per customer please.

Currently listening to: American Idol on TV in the other room. Talk about stupid . . . "He call me a mink!"
Eating: Smarties

Well, do you?

Alright, I admit it. Not so much. That's why a package of Lorna Doone cookies or bag of Fritos doesn't last long around here. That's why the vacuum cleaner has been sitting in the middle of the living room for a week. So many more interesting distractions to choose from in MadgeWorld. What about you?

Friends Forever

Hooly
Happy Birthday to my friend Beth Gilhooly. Universally known as "Hooly." We met when I was knocked up with my third and she with her first. She's godmother to my third born child, Nora. Mother to Joe, Rory, Elinor and Molly. Wife to Russ Belk. (Classmate of Stevil, DeLaSalle, class of 1967.) School Psychologist by day, gourmand, bon vivant by evening. The only one I know who heads to Keegan's Pub for a Guinness after working out in the gym.



Fearless and frickin' crazy.
How crazy, you ask? Well, we were just goofy enough to take a road trip to Arkansas with her four and two of mine in a 15-passenger van. This was before Game Boy and portable video players -- Kids get restless? Toss 'em some fruit snacks and keep going to the next rest area. Ask me about the Arkansas petting zoo sometime. Think "Deliverance" meets Animal Kingdom. Donkeys. Snakes. Puppies in need of deworming. A proprietor in need of dental work and possibly mental health intervention.
Many good times in the back yard in North East Minneapolis and many birthdays celebrated around their dinner table.


Countless hours spent at swimming pools watching the kids swim back and forth. Only Hooly and her kids persisted in that athletic endeavor. Hooly's been through it all with me. Birth, baptisms, standardized tests, school programs, confirmations, graduations, weddings, death, IQ tests (my kids are geniuses), my constant mental breakdowns. With eight children between us, we've experienced every permutation of child development and then some. And we've lived to tell many tales.



So, I wish my friend of 25 years a wonderful year. Schlanta!

Enjoying: Dry Red
Listening to: Pandora, my "Van the man" station.
Facing: a Saturday of tax preparation.