Funerals are easy compared to saving the life of a person

My good friend Dave Kergaard is going on five weeks past hip replacement surgery - his second - and showed me an autographed football sent to him by former Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown who wrote, “Dave, welcome to the club.”

Jim Brown had both hips replaced just this year. Dave’s nephew, Dave Zastudil, is the Browns’ punter and Dave trains Maureen Keenan, who is the sister of Browns president Mike Keenan. There are more ties than Dave has in his closet and so I’m working on getting my own autograph from a famous replaced hip star and I’ve limited my choices to Bo Jackson and Prince.

I’M SAD, C’MON - The televised Michael Jackson extravaganza made me mad on several layers, but mostly because so many profilers on stage did nothing to help him when his life was spiraling out of control when he was obviously addicted to drugs, suffering from the behavioral disorder of anorexia and surrounded by evil losers who could not have cared less about him. And innocent until proven guilty does not dismiss the allegations for Michael Jackson or anybody else who ends up in court twice on horrendous criminal charges and later pays off accusers with millions to settle civil suits without a trial. I see parallels in our own community, so-called friends who show up big at funerals but don’t do anything to pull hapless friends back from the edge of the abyss.

I believe we are our brother’s keepers, and what does this have to do with sports? For me it is all the young men who died early or went to jail because buddies and friends never stepped across to intervene. Funerals are easy compared to saving a life of a person who doesn’t ask for your help but certainly needs it. See you all in church!

DOPE PEDDLERS - I’ll watch the Tour de France on TV, but talk about a chemically tainted sport! And am I supposed to believe that Lance can take four years off and come back at 37 and contend in that insane endurance event? I am not ready to buy into the Lance Armstrong comeback story just because my instincts tell me it’s all wrong. If Armstrong is not clean then he is all the way crazy.

RELAY RACING - Jen Reynolds poses with her close friend local artist Matt Adler after Matt swam and Jen completed the run stage July 4 at the Dave Reynolds Biathlon. The two friends team up each year. Randy Stone has been on the wining relay team five of the last six years. This year swimmer Randy teamed up with Taylor Hinson, a freshman cross country runner at Delaware and two-miler for Concord where he ran 9:58 for two miles and competed on four state championship teams.

HOT DOG TRUCK - Where I grew up in Philadelphia it was not unusual to see an Oscar Mayer hot dog truck rolling down the road. You never grew passive about seeing the wiener mobile. “There’s the freaking hot dog truck!”

Oscar Mayer died last week in Wisconsin at the age of 95. So where is the celebration? And I was surprised to learn that he was Oscar Mayer the third. He left behind his beloved dachshund, Cheese Dog.

SNIPPETS - Jason and Jared Tootell, along with Troy Bokius, will compete in the 11th annual Lake Placid Ironman Triathlon on July 26. The Nation’s Triathlon in Washington, D.C. - now sold out - will be Sept. 13. I guess this burgeoning interest in competition in triathlons is the leading edge of a fitness craze, but in reality the vast majority of people who walk the planet are not crazed about fitness. Fat trumps fitness every day of the week.
The most common reaction I’ve heard from my male friends over the news that Steve McNair’s girlfriend shot him was, “And she wasn’t even that good looking.” When guys talk to other guys that is the type of position they take, pretty much basic instinct kind of stuff.