This is basically that case:
Coach: prays at midfield after game
School: “Um…you can’t do that. We’re a public school.”
Coach: “Ok, then I quit.”
School: “Ok. Bye.”
Coach: “You can’t fire me! I quit!”
School: “Um…we didn’t fire you. You did quit.”
Coach: “I’m gonna sue you!”
School: sigh
Trial Court: “You can’t pray like that. It’s a public school. Plus, you weren’t fired. You quit.”
Coach: “Appeal!”
Appeals Court: “Yeah, we’re gonna have to agree with the trial court on this.”
Coach: “SCOTUS! Help me!”
SCOTUS: “We got you. School, give him his job back! You shouldn’t have fired him.”
School: “But…we didn’t fi…you know what, screw it. You have your job back, coach.”
Coach: “I don’t want it anymore.”
School: “Oh, fer chrissake!”
Getting his life back on track.
He doesn’t seem to understand why he was “forced” into retirement. What a lack of self-awareness.
outta sight!
it’s so weird how drugs were so taboo, the whole discussion is couched in language of “not showing up for gigs.” and he’s on public record being obviously out of his gourd on Dick Cavett. and Cavett can’t just say “wow, what drugs are you on, you’re really out there?” which would have been at least a coherent conversation. and a decade+ later, Letterman can’t say “you’re clean and sober now and ready to get back to work,” he has to dance around a topic it doesn’t even seem like Sly would have any problem discussing.
why were we as a culture like that?
great performances, really a shame he couldn’t keep it together.
It’s actually about Dr. Hynek.
Absolutely worth reading, for the methodology, humor, and history lesson.
The Map, by Elizabeth Bishop
Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under?
The shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and still.
Labrador’s yellow, where the moony Eskimo
has oiled it. We can stroke these lovely bays,
under a glass as if they were expected to blossom,
or as if to provide a clean cage for invisible fish.
The names of seashore towns run out to sea,
the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains
—the printer here experiencing the same excitement
as when emotion too far exceeds its cause.
These peninsulas take the water between thumb and finger
like women feeling for the smoothness of yard-goods.
Mapped waters are more quiet than the land is,
lending the land their waves’ own conformation:
and Norway’s hare runs south in agitation,
profiles investigate the sea, where land is.
Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors?
—What suits the character or the native waters best.
Topography displays no favorites; North’s as near as West.
More delicate than the historians’ are the map-makers’ colors.
I wonder if this is what we’re all trying to do, whether here, at That Other Place, or wherever.
There’s a general concept of “third places” - social places outside of home and work, where community forms. (The video in Mindysan’s post above at Well this is interesting - #4980 by mindysan33 is a good background and criticism.)
There’s also a book Bowling Alone - The Collapse and Revival of American Community about how participation in all types of community groups has plummeted since the 1960s. The title comes from the bowling leagues people would join at the local bowling alley, or getting together to play bridge with the neighbors, but it covers various types of community organization, political organization, and of course, churches are a big one.
Church is or can be or used to be, a major one of those. It’s not just the main religious services. It’s hanging out in the basement with the bus drivers having coffee and donuts early in the morning before they go out on their routes. It’s setting things up for the daycare / Sunday school and/or teaching. It’s managing the field trips out to the farm or whatever for the teen youth group. It’s practicing music with the band or chorus. Helping out with a wedding or meals for the homeless or in the thrift shop or the craft show or the bake sale. Meeting your neighbors and talking and doing stuff together.
And yeah, I think this is directly related, and one of the ways we fill in for those other things that are just missing in most of our lives now. We have an easygoing community here that fits all of the characteristics of a third place. And it gives a sense of community. Not quite the same as a church, but hits some of the same notes, though not all of them.
That is interesting. I’ve driven under that bridge hundreds of times and never thought about it.
There was a community there then, but not now.
