So on Jeopardy today (Monday) in the category of 'Americana' the answer to a question was something like: This Iowa city was named after the Frenchman who first settled there. The question was: What is Dubuque? When things like this happen it feels like a message from God saying, "Keep on doing what you are doing!" Or are the Jeopardy writers reading my blog and using my material? Or are they using computer search engines to look for hot fresh new ideas or popular themes on the web? Is the web the digital collective consciousness? Maybe it's all just pure coincidence? What ever the case it was real cool, cool as ICE.

Big B and I had friends from the ICE come visit us once in a while when we were living in the Wilson Street crib in Dubuque. Our very good friend D. Rosenhammered (or 'Hammer' for short) made a few such visits. Hammer received a full ride soccer scholarship to the Division I school of Western Illinois after setting our high school's scoring record for goals in a season. He was also nominated as KCRG TV 9's athlete of the year. Hammer was a really small guy. In grade school he would play football with us at Longfellow Elementary's Shraider Field, but because of his size he would get thrown around and beaten like a rag doll and sometimes he would get knocked out of the game and go on I.R. due to broken bones and such. He was tough and not a quitter though, and after recovering from his injuries he would always show up again to play football where once again he would get beat down and spun around. Hammer's initiation into basketball at the rec. is a story I remember all so well. One day we needed one more guy to make 10 for a full court game so we asked Hammer to run; he had been shooting by himself on a side hoop. My slam dunking mentor Shot Blender threw down one crazy ass dunk on poor little Hammer in that game. On the play Shot was coming down the court with the ball on a fast break and Hammer was the only one back on defense. Shot took a hard dribble bouncing the ball up and over Hammer which Shot, after jumping off the stride, caught with one hand above the rim and dunked it with his usual ferocity. Welcome to the rec. center Hammer. After playing soccer for a year at Western Hammer transferred to a school that I had applied to and almost attended. It was called Luther College which was located in the upper north east corner of Iowa in the same general area as Dubuque. Luther was in the same athletic conference as UD so we played them twice every year in basketball. If I would have visited Luther's campus during my decision making process I surely would have made the decision to attend because Luther has one of the most scenic college campuses I have ever seen with limestone cliffs, forests, trout streams... I still wonder what my life would have been like if I would have gone there right after high school instead of Cornell College in Mt. Vernon (which was way closer to home). The soccer program at Luther was taking off and Hammer became one of the teams best players. Big B and Hammer were both two years my junior and Big B was much better friends with Hammer than me during that period. Besides playing football with Hammered at Longfellow and going to grade school and high school with him his dad was a pediatrics doctor at a clinic near Mercy Hospital in the ICE who once treated a dislocated finger of mine. I dislocated that finger many times and I tried to put it back into place by myself once or twice, so now it it is deformed and does not bend at that joint. In later years I kidded Hammer's dad about mangling my finger. The clinic where Dr. Rosenhammered worked was at one time a vacant lot owned by the school district and was where I practiced quarterbacking my 7th grade football team of Central Junior High Little Hawks to an undefeated season in the last year of the schools existence before it was torn down (torn down coincidentally by one of my best friend while growing up's grandpa, a legendary Iowa City figure and tycoon named Max Yokem). Our 7th grade team played our games at Shraider Field at my old grade school, Henry Woodswarth Longfelllow, which bordered the back yard of Hammer's folks old house. It is also where Hammer set his soccer scoring records years later in high school. Many of my ICE friends are from the same graduating class as Big B and Hammer so none of them went to Central. The 100+ year old school (built in the late 1800's I think) used to be the high school and was located in the old downtown Iowa City. The memories I had of my 7th grade year are so classic and the memories of football practices in the Autumn heat at the vacant lot where Hammer's dad's office now resides are some of the best in my life. Another Hammer memory involved the fact that I bought a dirt bike from him in grade school or Junior High, or at least I had planned to buy it. He gave me a great deal on a Schwinn Predator frame. I payed him 5$ upfront but promised to pay him 50$ by the end of the summer. I didn't come up with the money and when I went on vacation Hammer and his dad came over and repossessed it (I blame my folks for not helping me pay for it). I mention all this stuff about the schools and the fields and the connections between Hammer and I because it is important to understand how 'old school' Iowa City myself and my ICE friends are and how intertwined our families are in the history and community of the city. And it goes even way deeper than what I've mentioned here (most of my IC stories are not included in this blog). For me there was always like a sacred connection between myself and the place, or the ground, or the field, or the court, or the land...? I can't even explain it really. Does my blood, sweat, and tears leave an energy mark or something on a place? Energy that I can feel at a later moment in time? I know one thing and that was that I would play and battle and even actually fight if it came to it to defend courts of childhood lore. It felt like I could draw on old memories of games I had played and battles I had fought to fuel an extra level of athleticism or skill whenever it came to returning to a place of familiarity while defending the neighborhoods rep. and my own rep. in a game of basketball or even football. Anyway, back to Hammer time. When Big B and I were first in Dubuque he used to have long phone call conversations with Hammer. After Big B returned to UD during the year of the Mexico trip and while we lived in the Wilson Street Crib the long phone conversations continued and Hammer even came to visit a couple of times, and visa versa (we went to visit him at Luther a couple of times). I can not remember the order of how and when things happened in the stories of Hammer's visits, but the highlights alone are like climactic punchlines. For example we all went to a dance at the school one night and at the time Big B and I were dressing up Chris Cross style (clothes on backwards). So since Hammer was going with us we put this green striped shirt with a collar on him, backwards! And to complete the look he also sported a backwards ball cap and backwards genes.That night he got separated from us and ended up hanging out with some black dudes he didn't even know who took him to a party somewhere. Some other black dude either at the dorms or at the party saw my little friend dressed up with his clothes on backwards and all and decided to attack him by throwing a giant plastic street light cover at him. The huge round plastic cover was amazingly pliable and had lots of give but nonetheless Hammer was beamed right in the head with it by the angry black dude. Fortunately one or two of the guys Hammer was with stepped in said that hammer was one of my friends. That was enough to save Hammer for a little while, but I think he had to flee at some point and then found himself lost in a huge sprawling dying town that had more dead ends and steep cliffs and sprawling hills and rundown boarded up neighborhoods than one can imagine. Hammer ended up sleeping on a park bench in some really nice park somewhere. He somehow managed to find the Wilson Street crib the next morning. We thought maybe he was dead somewhere or maybe, just maybe, he got lucky with a honey. OK, we didn't think that he got lucky and I was in fact a little worried about him. We should have made sure that we all stuck together the night before, and I have no idea what happened to me or Big B that night where we misplaced and temporarily forgot about our good friend like he was an article of clothing or something. Hammer was tough, and smart, and could outrun anyone if he had to and I admit now that it was somewhat amusing letting him fend for himself in such a rough and tumble city and even more wildly amusing to hear about his adventures and survival tactics from that night. He returned that morning with the huge plastic street light cover and wacked me over the head with it. I'm telling you that that plastic was about the softest and most giving plastic protective cover I have ever seen or felt, and the blow to my noggin didn't hurt a bit, but its a real scary and alarming sight to see a huge round heavy looking sphere coming down about to strike you in the head. Hammer gave the giant plastic sphere to me as a keepsakes and I kept it for many years. On another occasion Hammer and his pal and Luther teammate Dan Diablos came to visit with Big B and Big Swan. Diablos was a sneaky bastard, and the climactic story of the end of Diablos' time in the IC came many years later after soccer and after he had moved to and lived in the ICE for a few years. On this particular trip Diablos' antics had wore thin on the nerves of Big B and Big Swan and Big B ended up loosing his cool and picked Diablos up, threw him on the ground and then smothered him, all right in front of the STW's Sarai and Alley Cat in Johny Duke's dorm room. Sarai played soccer for UD so I introduced her to Hammer and attempted to set them up. Hammer is such a little guy that a person has to see him in action on the pitch with their own two eyes to appreciate his athletic prowess. My hype about my friend Hammer to Sarai probably sounded and seemed like a tall tale especially when she saw how short he was. The visit where Hammer first met Sarai was actually a different visit and happened a year or two prior then the visit where Diablos succumbed to the public beat down by Big B. Also, I better make it clear that Big B's aggression on Diablos was fueled by years of dealing with Diablos' shadiness, thievery, and lies, and also a tight ride and long road trip from IC to Luther to Dubuque in Big B's S-10 with 350+lb. Big Swan riding shotty and Danny Boy in the middle. Even though it happened during my one last semester at UD, I may as well tell that whole story now since we're on the topic of Hammer and road trips between Luther and Dubuque. Big B, Diablos and Swan rolled up to Decorah (where Luther is located) from the ICE to see Hammer, then their plan was to come and visit me. It was a three day weekend of some sort as I recall. They all ended up going to a bar in Decorah but as was the norm Big Swan didn't have any valid ID with him so they wouldn't let him in at the door. They had drank Night Train or Mad Dog before going out so they were real hammered (pun intended). Big B played pool and somehow managed to start a fight with some locals when he slammed his pool que on the table and broke the tip off. They tried to kick him out and at one point Big B was swinging four guys around the bar all at once. Then the owner punched him in the mouth and then Big B really got mad and was just about to demolish the guy when the guy at the last moment pulled the old, "I'm about to die of cancer. Please don't hurt me." It was a good clean way out for Big B, but by then the cops showed up and arrested Big B. and Hammer and even Diablos I think. They were hauled downtown but were released later on. On their way home or at some point they saw Big Swan leaned over a huge boulder on the Luther campus. Hammer said he thought Swan was puking, but alas it was not so. Swan was leaned over making out with some hot chick! Big smoothy. I think Hammer met his eventual wife during that trip or on one of those Big B. visits. Needless to say when Big B, Big Swan, and Danny Diablos showed up in Dubuque they were all so miserably hung over there was no partying or craziness to speak of. Except for hearing about their misfortunes and fortunes in Decorah from the days before, their visit was lame and they were no fun to be around. Diablos was the only one who wanted to go out.

Team goes on a run after Mexico

After returning home and traveling together and playing through some extremely tough circumstances in Mexico the team put together a nice win streak during the second half of our season. Our conference play had begun and these games and winning the conference decided whether or not a team from our conference would be invited to the NCAA Division III basketball playoffs. I played well in Mexico and it seemed as though I was on the verge of breaking into the main rotation, but the new semester brought a new class schedule that once again conflicted with the practice schedule. I had two science labs that ran into practice time. In practices coach was implementing new press defenses and new plays for the team so I was always scrambling to try and keep up to date on any changes. When I was at practice that semester I was like a wild stallion trying to break out of a fenced in pasture. I wanted more playing time and in practice I let my teammates feel my wrath. I can't even remember how much playing time I got in games, but it wasn't much. I think I played in most of those games and I must have scored some, but what I remember most is the play of the team. Everyone was playing well and playing together. Chucky Amsterdam was scoring consistently and playing hard in practice. Putzman was coming along too, so with 6-8 Brute Mahone, 6-6 Chucky Amsterdam, and the 6-9 Putzman, there wasn't much playing time available for me in the front court. Zeke and G Money held down the wing spots, and Lil Lamb ran the point. Black B was still working on eligibility status. Coach played Chubby Rundy because he was good friends with Spanky's dad who also happened to be a high school coach in the area. Spanky aka Chubby Rundy was a decent spot up shooter and a great quarterback in high school but he was short, chubby, and slow on the court. We also got a new player at the semester, a kid that went by the nickname of "Q". He was 6-4 and outweighed me and played my position as well, and his older brother was a former UD player that still had sway in the program and came back to play and coach in the summer basketball camp, so now I had to compete against him for playing time too. During games I focused on being a good teammate and encouraged players in the game from the bench. Johny Duke said it sounded like I was coaching the team. We went on an 11 game win streak and were tied for first place going down the stretch. I know this is going to sound very self centered, like I was somehow all so important to the team and it's going to sound like I think the whole world revolves around me, but the team and the world didn't and doesn't revolve around me, the team revolved around coach. I was just one of many cogs on that team, but I was definitely a major personality on the team. Three teammates and a former coach and all-time UD great player all lived in my house. It seemed to me that I dominated more practice's than anyone else. This was in part because I was always teamed up with my boys on the JV which was like the practice squad for the starters or the top players in the rotation. It allowed me to shine offensively against the starters and I loved to pick off passes and take off down the court for a dunk or layup attempt while coach had been trying to install some sort of half court play for the starters at the other end. I got pushed in the back and into the wall one time after one such steal by either Chucky or Lil Lamb. Big B said he asked Chucky and it wasn't him, so it must have been Lil Lamb. It was his pass that I had picked off on the play, which was one of many that year. There is nothing so dirty and cheap in my mind than pushing a basketball player in the back when they are going in for a layup. I thoroughly enjoyed my role on the team as the in practice spoiler and I loved playing with Big B, White B, and Hot Breath and most of all I loved making a mockery out of coaches tactics and plays in practice. But that wasn't enough for me. I was feeling stronger than ever in my life. I had been lifting weights heavily for three years and I had actually benched the most weight on the team in pre-season weight testing (that was before Q arrived). I had put up 265 lbs. 2 times. I was just finally recovering fully from the 2 and a half year old ankle injury (thats really how long it took to get back to the place where I was before I hurt it in that intramural game my first semester). I was dunking again with more regularity, and near the end of the season I went on a string of dunking at least once a day in scrimmage like situations during practice. One such dunk was on a play in a scrimmage situation at the end of practice when coach was working with our JV alone and without the varsity present (they had already hit the showers). I got another steal for a fast break and with White B right on my tale I flared wide as was my habit and with B right there I leaped off my left foot off the stride and slammed one home. I kidded Sneaky Sig about that dunk after practice by saying that I dunked on him. He responded by saying that he had to run down there on the play because coach was there. He was right and I didn't really dunk on him, although he was right there, but it was fun kidding him about it and seeing his reaction none-the-less. That was probably a poor decision on my part and might have had something to do with my downfall later on. In practice one day G Money got a steal and took off for the dunk, so I raced down and in the air tried to swipe the basket. It was a crazy play with two high fliers going full speed and from opposite sides of the court and coach was pissed as hell at me afterwards and blew the whistle and yelled, "We're not trying to hurt anybody here!" First off I am not letting someone dunk on me if I can help it (I have never pushed anyone in the back though), and I didn't hurt G Money or even foul him, and third I was actually trying to re-in act a play I saw as a kid at the Iowa City Prime Time Summer League one time when Brian Garner from Milwalkee and Rodell Davis from Chicago did the same play and had the same showdown with a chase to the basket from opposite sidelines and a swipe of the basket by the defender as the other player tried to dunk. I can see why coach would have been upset because I was basically hurling my body into the air at full speed like I was going to tackle Havatake. I would love to have seen or see that play on tape so I could examine if I was really out of control or if it was just two athletes going head to head in an amazing athletic display of grace and determination. Lastly, why didn't coach blow the whistle and make a fuss when I was pushed in the back by Lil Lamb on a break away play in another prior practice? I wish I would have let it all out right there and had it out with coach in front of everyone. I was getting sick of the hypocrisy and double standards by coach. I would talk to D Rog and the roomies about it at night back at the pad. D Rog would always defend coach. OK so I probably didn't deserve to play because of my clandestine love affair with M. Jane, but other star players and even former coaches like D himself were guilty of the same crime. And since I decided to keep my major as Environmental Science I had no choice but to accept a class schedule that compromised practice time. That was just the breaks. But when it comes to double standards especially concerning cheap shots and the like in practice, that was an act that caused me to loose a lot of respect for our head coach Don Javison. My grades were suffering, it was hard to get to classes from the Wilson Street pad. I dropped a class even and I was down to taking just 10 credits for the semester. The old school wrestling coach was my professor for one of my classes and he almost failed me for missing to many classes. He had me meet him in his office and he asked me what the problem was. He said I had more smoke than anyone in the class, even including the teachers (I got all A's on his tests and was always the first one to hand in his tests and he still was going to fail me based on principle). My response to him was that as basketball was going so went the rest of my life. I was frustrated with basketball and my class schedule and was also in the process of moving, which is why I told him I had missed so many classes. He allowed me to make up the missed class by doing a large extra credit project. I could tell that that man had his principles and his rules and he stuck by them. It was tough but at least a person knew where they stood and he seemed like the type of coach who would never allow favoritism to play a part in his coaching decisions. As I've said in a previous post that old man was the former UD head football coach but they made him step down because he was to old school and over the top hard core. Big Stace wrestled for the coach during his first couple years at UD. The meeting and this whole episode with the wrestling coach seemed and still seems important to me. It was like he was the only one trying to reach out, and I barely knew him and he wasn't even my coach. During this period I still drank a few beers most nights, either partying or at home with D Rog. D would also come home with some cigars and alternative replacement contents every night. Being at the crib and hanging out with the fellas was more fun than anything else. It was nearing the end of the season and there were only three games left. If we won out we had a chance to make the play offs. In an upcoming game the JV team was scheduled to play a group of semi-pro players from the ICE before the varsity game versus another conference opponent. I couldn't wait. I thought I knew who the guys were that we were going to face and I couldn't wait to get at them and compete and dunk in their faces. It was a chance for pay back on the IC 'in crowd' ballers that I had always had a big rivalry with. There would be one problem. A big winter storm hit and there was a no show by the other team. The JV team was split into two teams and we had an inter squad JV scrimmage instead. I was matched up against White B in the game. I had 19 points before half time when he stuck his foot out under mine on a drive to the basket and down I went, another crippling ankle injury. I left the court, went down to the locker room, put my clothes on, and hobbled and snuck out the far corner back door, an exit hardly ever used by anyone. While I was leaving an older woman was coming up to the door trying to get in. I saw her slip on the ice and whack her head on the ground. I came out and held the locked from the outside door open for her and asked if she was OK. I limped and hobbled home and stopped at the Oky Doke store on the way for some 40 oz. King Cobra Malt liquor bottles and a bottle of Robitusm. At home I consumed all of the above and then watched an amazing moment on all of sports television when during ESPN's first annual Espy awards the very ill and close to death former NC State coach Jim Valvano gave his awesome awe inspiring speech about "Never give up". The speech put me in tears. I wasn't even supposed to have been there, at home, watching TV. I felt like a quitter in one respect because I kind of quit on my team. The reason I had snuck out of the sports complex was because if I would have gone down to the training room I would have gone into an emotional rage against coach, the school, White B... another ankle injury and an early end to my season when I had just started rounding into great form on the court was more than I would have been able to keep inside. And I was going 100,000$ into debt for all this? By laying low I saved everyone from having to witness a potential emotional breakdown on my part. If I would have been stronger and wiser and more patient I would have known that the right thing to do was to get treatment and be on the bench or sidelines even if it was in street clothes cheering on the team. I did go to the varsity game later that night wearing my pull over hoody that I bought in Mexico but I sat way up in the bleachers. The team lost the game and then lost the next three. No playoff appearance for the team. I was back on then back off the team again in those final weeks of school. I was even considering transferring to Clark College (which was the old Catholic women's college) for the next school year where they had built a beautiful new basketball and sports facility. Things at the Wilson Street crib were getting out of hand with parties and unruly roommates so I moved out and into G-Money's Townhouse which he shared with Q and Rundy. Reecy asked me at the time why I was moving out and he said, "What about us?" I reminded him about D Rog pissing all over Rue's jacket in the living room and about the crap Reecy pulled one night when he got rough with a girl and the cops took me, Hot Breath, and White B down to the station for questioning. He reminded me how Havatake had sold me out so many times. I needed to be close to the school and in a more stable environment so I left the Wilson Street crew to fend for themselves. We had one humungous party before I moved out, but the cops showed up and busted the party up. D Rog, Mo, White B, Hot Breath, a former UD student named Curtis from Chicago, and a few others were listening to my stereo up in the 'bat cave' when there was a knock at my bedroom door. Reecy cracked the door open to see who it was and he quickly closed it and said it was the 5-0. We thought maybe he was kidding for a second but he was not so all the cigar innards were dumped and the blunts were hidden. The cops smelled cigar as we walked out of my room and downstairs. There were like 10 cops on the scene. Havatake let them in the house and sent them upstairs. I guess the music had been to loud. It was a raging party and I was the only one charged with keeping a disorderly house, a misdemeanor which I had to appear in court for. I made the first court appearance and pleaded innocent but I missed the next court date and all the dates thereafter which for years had me worried that I had a warrant out for my arrest (they eventually fined me and took it out of my tax returns years later).