IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

“Back and to the left…back and to the left…”

Starting Five

Manitoba Manhunt: Over

The RCMP reported finding two bodies yesterday in dense brush about 8 kilometers north of Gillam. They said that they are “confident” that the two corpses are the two teen murder suspects.

No word on the condition of the bodies or how they might have expired.

The RCMP got their break when Clint Sawchuk, owner of Nelson River Adventures, reported seeing a sleeping bag caught in willows along the river’s edge. That led to an RCMP helicopter searching the area and finding the boat and personal items, and soon after the bodies were discovered.

An autopsy is planned in Winnipeg.

Manson Murders: 50 Years Later

It was 50 years ago today that Los Angeles police responded to a call at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon and discovered five bodies, all victims of a gruesome murder spree. Actress Sharon Tate, 8 1/2 months pregnant, and four others had been brutally stabbed and/or beaten to death.

Tate was stabbed 16 times. Coffee heiress Abigail Folger (above), 28 times. Folger’s boyfriend, Voytek Frykowski, 51 times. We’ve not seen Tarantino’s new film. We have seen Helter Skelter and other documentaries about the Manson Family. As far as American crimes go (should we qualify this with “pre-mass shooting age?”), this is among the very worst since there was no real motive. At best one could say Charles Manson was exacting revenge on music producer Terry Melcher for snubbing him, but even Manson knew that Melcher was no longer living at that home when he ordered four of his followers to carry out the killings.

Worth noting: Tate’s younger sister wanted to come over and spend the night but Sharon canceled that plan at the last minute. Music producer Quincy Jones also had planned to visit that evening but opted out.

Photo Op Prez

President Trump visited Dayton and El Paso yesterday, and he was all smiles, as you’d expect the president to be while visiting two sites of mass murder over the weekend. His director of social media, Dan Scavino, reported that he was treated “like a rock star.”

You may also note that the president never acknowledged that Mexicans or Mexican-Americans were the specific target in El Paso, or that the killer’s manifesto drew inspiration from the president’s own words…but he did find time on Tuesday for a phone call with NRA president Wayne LaPierre.

“People Will Come”

Just announced: The Yankees and White Sox will play a home game at the Field of Dreams site in Iowa on August 13, 2020. Construction of an 8,000-seat venue is set to begin Monday, exactly one year before the game is to take place.

(Throw in snarky joke about how tariffs and global warming have made arable farmland obsolete, anyway, so why not build a baseball field?). You have to imagine that Kevin Costner will show up, but what about Timothy Busfield and James Earl Jones and Ray Liotta and Amy Madigan and Gaby Hoffman (the young daughter)? Burt Lancaster can’t, of course.

Liotta was perfect as Shoeless Joe, yet was not even nominated for an Oscar. And FoD lost out to Driving Miss Daisy for Best Picture.

This is an inspired idea (which many of us have pitched over the years, by the way, almost from immediately after seeing the film for the first time), particularly because the White Sox are attached to Shoeless Joe Jackson who gets some wonderful play in the film (Liotta was so on fire at the time, with this role and then Goodfellas in consecutive years). One imagines that MLB will schedule one game per year here moving forward.

Now, if MLB is serious about attracting European fans, it needs to schedule at least one matinee game every day of the season so that fans in Europe don’t have to watch games that begin at midnight or later local time.

Biblio Files: The Rules of Civility

Our favorite read of 2018 was A Gentleman In Moscow, written by Amor Towles. The author, 55, worked at an investment firm from 1991-2012, but he had graduated from Yale and gotten a Masters in English from Stanford as a young man.

When I began raving about A Gentleman last year, a cousin of mine opined that she actually preferred his first novel, from 2011, Rules of Civility. What a rube, I thought (!), but last week I finally decided to pick up Rules and you know what? Four nights later I was finished.

And she may be right.

Highly recommended, and Towles is now my favorite author who’s written any fiction post-20th century. There are poignant moments in Rules, a story that will be embraced by anyone who has ever been young and making a go of it in New York City, but there were also a few laugh-out-loud moments delivered courtesy of our heroine, Katey Kontent.

We hope you pick this one up. It’s our favorite read of 2019.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

“Chernobyl 2: Siberian Boogaloo”

Anyone else notice how the most damage the USA and Russia ever do is to themselves?

The execs at HBO must be thrilled. Now we just need a body count and we have to find out if Jared Harris’ schedule can be cleared for the coming year.

Will A Running Back Who’s A Sitting Back Be Welcome Back?

Dallas Cowboy running back Ezekiel Elliott has threatened to pull a Le’Veon Bell and sit out the entire season unless Jerry Jones gives him a new deal. Time was when only Urban Meyer had the power to irrationally squander Zeke’s obvious talent and not deploy him. Now the former Buckeye back and two-time Pro Bowler is doing it to himself.

Maybe he just doesn’t want to partake in August training camp. We could understand that.

In three seasons Zeke has earned more than $13 million while rushing for more than 4,000 yards. All well and good, but if he were to sit this season he’d still be under the Cowboys’ employ at the start of next season. So is he willing to sit two seasons? Prolly not. If it’s a bluff in the land where Texas Hold ‘Em began, both Zeke and Jerry know who’s holding the superior hand.

New York, New York

The Yankees have won seven in a row, but the Mets have won 12 of 13. The Citi Fielders are now two games over .500 and better yet are one of eight National League teams within five games of a wildcard berth. And our friend Matt Zemek claimed the 2019 season was boring!

The Yanks, by the way, are tied with Los Angeles Dodgers for baseball’s best record (.655) and last night hit six solo home runs at Camden Yards. The Yanks have become the first team to hit at least five home runs in four different games at the same opponent’s park in one season (Baltimore), have set a record for most home runs hit at one opposing ballpark (38, Camden Yards) in one season, and tonight will likely break the mark for most home runs hit by one team versus another (currently 48, they’re at 47) in one season.

Maine Attraction

That’s Nubble Island, for which there’s an even more arresting photo if you just type “bing.com” on your browser this morning. It’s located just about 100 yards off the tip of Cape Neddick, Maine, which is only a few miles north of the Maine-Massachusetts border.

August is the month everyone travels to Maine. Even Phil Mickelson. It truly is a beautiful and unique state when the temps are above 70 and the sun’s out.

Manitoba Manhunt: ?

The Nelson River

The RCMP have found an aluminum boat on the shores of the Nelson River that looks the worse for wear. And they’ve found what they say are a few items that belonged to McLeod and Schmegelsky, who are both now 19 if they are still alive. And yes, the RCMP is probably hopeful that both men drowned on an ill-fated voyage along the river.

But here’s the thing: they just don’t know.

What we do know is that the two teens, who are suspected of murdering three people in mid-July, crossed four Canadian provinces and at least 1,200 miles in four days back in the third week of July. Now, nearly three weeks later, no one has spotted them since.

Says Canadian Terry Grant, a cowboy known as “Mantracker,” ““I’m half thinking they met someone in a big town … and they’re long gone to Texas or the Bahamas.” Sure, this article from The National Post is sensationalist in nature, but it’s rooted in truth.

The RCMP seems to be at the point where they themselves know that continuing to search near Gillam is fruitless and that enough time has passed that the two young murder suspects could be just about anywhere a vehicle could take them. That includes the USA or Mexico. Until they show themselves or are spotted by someone who remembers what they look like and that THEY’RE BOTH 6’4″, this trail will remain cold.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Blood Harvest

I’ll just throw out a few thoughts on El Paso and Dayton (Gilroy, we hardly knew ya’, but you gotta do better than three dead to garner and MSNBC “Nation In Crisis” special these days):

–Ignorance leads to Fear.

Fear leads to Anger.

Anger leads to Violence.

Education is the first step in combating this crisis. Curious, isn’t it, how this administration assails education and promotes “security,” i.e. the military and law enforcement?

–Under Donald Trump, this is not the USA. This is the USAndthem. From his presidential declaration (“many of them are rapists”) to the Mexican judge to “shithole countries” to “fine people on both sides” to “go back” to “an invasion” to “infestation,” he has, wittingly or unwittingly, appointed himself the face of White Supremacy.

This weekend, and not for the first time during his presidency, a mass murder took place under his name. Males, always males and almost always white, are killing innocent people who are not white or not Christian to align themselves to a movement greater than themselves. And Donald Trump is their leader, by the way he speaks in public.

The particulars between Trump and Osama bin Laden, between ISIS and White Supremacists, are different. The fundamentals are the same.

–This morning on MSNBC I heard talking faces seriously discussing a list of things to do to prevent more mass shootings, everything from background checks to more mental health awareness to restricting violent video games. Nobody mentioned the simplest answer: Love.

The values of this administration are “America First” and “Be Best.” There is no, as Jimmy Stewart’s Jefferson Smith intoned in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (a timely classic, 80 years later), “a little looking out for the other guy.” There is only fear and anger and xenophobia.

What does Donald Trump preach? Make money and do whatever you have to do to win. Screw the other guy, and screw playing fair. He’s that ugly Vic Morrow character from The Bad News Bears, the coach of the Yankees. We used to laugh at or treat with derision such jerks and bullies. Now we elect them president.

https://twitter.com/jdubs88/status/1158379567809273857?s=20

–Love won’t stop a bullet. I get it. But love is what’s missing when President Trump criticizes Baltimore, or calls Mexicans rapists, or tells Congresswomen of color “to go back.” Only a day before El Paso Trump got on Twitter and taunted a longstanding black Congressman, Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, for having had his house robbed.

–It’s not just the guns, the magazine capacity or semi-automatic/assault rifle potential. It’s WHO we are as a nation, and who we have become. This tweet illustrates that.

–On Sunday morning I tuned into all three cable news networks at around 10 a.m. CNN and MSNBC had wall-to-wall El Paso and Dayton coverage. Fox News had some milquetoast male anchor I’d never seen talking to a female about “Democratic presidential hopefuls” followed by a segment focusing on how Bill Maher had said on his program two nights earlier that he was “hoping for a recession.”

–Over the weekend in El Paso and Dayton 31 innocent people were murdered by two gunmen. You’d have to go back from this weekend to November of 1991 (nearly 28 years) to amass the same body count in the U.S.A. due to sharks. Kind of takes the bite out of Shark Week, does it not?

–Since 1949 there have been two dozen mass shootings in which at least 11 people were killed, including El Paso. In all but one of the 24 mass shootings, a lone male gunman was the perpetrator. Only in the San Bernadino massacre of 2015—14 dead—did a female take part, and only as an accomplice. Most of these gunmen were also white. And this does not include Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people using bombs on one day.

It’s funny. Women have to fight for control over their own bodies. Men are allowed to own profligate killing machines and damn anyone who tries to pry that gun out of his hands.

–On Halloween afternoon, 2017, an Uzbeki national got into a truck, drove it onto the Hudson River bike path, and mowed down eight cyclists/pedestrians/runners. Today, every intersection on that path from the tip of Manhattan up to 59th Street, about a five-mile stretch, has metal beams that prevent vehicles from driving onto it (except for E-bikes and scooters that travel at speeds of 35 mph and terrorize the rest of us, but that’s another issue for another blog). And he only murdered eight people. To think that if only he’d have shot those eight people to death with a high-capacity assault rifle, no changes to the bike path (or to our lives and safety) would have been made.

–I was thinking of this very thought below as I listened to Rick Santorum mansplain for the umpteenth time on CNN on Sunday morning why more stringent gun laws would not have stopped the latest mass murder. It’s an idea that needs to be put to use:

–Seriously, WTF here? He’s sniffing up a storm and he’s READING FROM A TELEPROMPTER and he still gets the name of the city wrong?

Trump has made similar errors so often when it comes to misfortune befalling anyone who is not white that it’s not entirely crazy to assume this is code from Stephen Miller to his neo-Nazi base, as if to say, “Don’t worry, he doesn’t really mean what he’s saying here. It’s just what he has to do to make this go away faster. But here’s this little Easter Egg, by way of a blatant misstatement, to remind you that we’re on your side.”

Either that or this president is just unfathomably clueless and stupid. These are the kind of shameful, unforced errors Fox News would have stabbed Obama with for the next year of his presidency. Too bad he never made them.

–Stick To Sports? Okay. When was the last time a starting nine in baseball, or a starting 11 on offense or defense in the NFL, or on a Top 25 college football team, much less a starting five in the NBA, was all white? I cannot think of one, but I imagine you’d have to travel back in time at least 50 years.

White Supremacy is a myth. As is White Decency. If you read your history, you know that just one generation after landing in Plymouth (the Pilgrims first went ashore on Cape Cod but that doesn’t get much historical play), the sons of those Pilgrims were waging war against the Native Americans and driving them out of Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts, off of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

Only 40 years after the Pilgrims arrived seeking, what was that again, freedom to pursue their religious beliefs, three people were hanged in public in Boston Common for defying a law that banned Quakers from Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were literally executed for pursuing their own religious beliefs, which was supposedly the reason the Puritans (Pilgrims) fled England.

And then, of course, there’s slavery.

A long time ago a group of white men got together and—with Tom Jefferson being their Michael Jordan and the rest of them the Bulls (maybe Adams was Scottie Pippen?)—drafted the Constitution of the United States, a document that is the apotheosis of the Age of Enlightenment. So, yes, good for them and good for us.

But the myth of White Supremacy is exactly that. As sports demonstrates daily. Two of my favorite basketball teams were the early 2000s Spurs, whose Hall of Fame trio hailed from Argentina, France and the Virgin Islands, and the “:07 or Less” Phoenix Suns, whose core group featured a Canadian (Steve Nash), a Brazilian (Leandro Barbosa), a Frenchman (Boris Diaw) and a Virgin Islander (Raja Bell).

*****

–By my unofficial count, via their Twitter feeds, Rachel Maddow invited 30 GOP lawmakers onto her show tonight and none accepted. Jake Tapper invited 50 GOP lawmakers onto his show and just one accepted. Which leads us to this illuminating clip from Nicolle Wallace’s program:

“Beat ’em. Beat every single one of ’em.” –David Jolly

–Perhaps the only happy political/national news of the weekend was that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fell and fractured his shoulder at home. If only he’d fallen from a higher distance.

–I asked a few GOP friends of mine today, people I’ve know since before I had a driver’s license: For everything that turns you off about the Democratic Party (and I don’t consider myself a true believer of either party, FWIW), how can you continue to support a party that either sits on its hands or actively promotes the unlimited availability of high-capacity firearms and blatant racism? What is so offensive about the other side that you’d rather stand on this side of the, pardon the term, wall?

–When I hear that “first responders” were on the scene in El Paso in six minutes and in Dayton in just 32 seconds, doubtless saving many lives, yes, I’m heartened by that news. I also wonder what might happen, from a longview perspective, if an active shooter were to be able to be more prolific? What if he could take out 200 lives with one gun in one incident? How many dead would it take to finally compel the Senate to move on the issue of gun safety? Sadly, I don’t think 200 would be enough. I also think there’s someone out there who’s hoping to be the first one to get a body count of at least 100, to be immortal.

–What are you thinking, New York Times?

And then, three hours later…

Wendell’s Wisdom

by John Walters | 2 Comments

We’re in between all-day shifts at various locations, so the great Wendell Barnhouse has offered to pilot the ship this morning. Thank you, Wendell.

–JW

by Wendell Barnhouse

It happened again. It happens too often. 

Those were seven words written by Your Humble Correspondent Saturday night. The intent was to write about how the mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso was “covered” on Twitter. YHC was satisfied that over 850 words and a handful of Tweet examples had sufficiently covered the topic.

While you were sleeping, it happened again. 

Another shooter with another assault rifle opened fire in the Oregon District in Dayton, Ohio. His high capacity clip(s) – more bullets, more bodies – resulted in nine deaths before police killed the shooter. Hence, most of the headlines you’ll see will say “10 killed in Dayton.” YHC prefers to count the body count at nine. The shooter doesn’t deserve recognition, even as a corpse.

YHC was up too late and was on his iPhone checking Twitter when the messages started to flow. Déjà vu all over again. 

As a cranky old man on Twitter, YHC uses the social media vehicle to stay current. By choosing wisely, Twitter can provide a handy news feed. When there is BREAKING NEWS such as the El Paso mass shooting, it displays the tar pit in which our society struggles with facts and rumors. Separating the wheat (useful information) from the chaff (fecal matter posted by bots and mouth breathers) is yeoman’s work but after over a decade of Twitter monitoring, YHC believes he can thresh through it.

The Dayton news was flowing at an odd time, after midnight in YHC’s time zone. One of the Tweets recommended a live stream that reminded of the movie “Nightcrawler.”

Tweets in this situation often are answered by retweets that basically are “hey, I heard this” info.

https://twitter.com/theharrycherry/status/1157903145672069121?s=11

In hindsight, this Twitter feed’s “sources” turned out to be accurate.

And that Tweet angered the “News Anchor & Founder of @AgendaFreeTV. Specialize (sic) in breaking news. 

https://twitter.com/lookner?s=11

Before putting down the iPhone in favor of sleep, YHC came across a Twitter feed that earned a follow.

The flow of mostly false information was reminiscent of the crossed streams of reality and make-believe during HBO’s “The Newsroom.” In the fourth episode of Season One featured a segment of how Atlantic Cable News covered a real-life weekend shooting – Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. While other networks reported Giffords had died, ACN waited until it could confirm and was able to “report” that Giffords was alive in in surgery.

Fictional producer Don Keefer offered a classic line that raised journalist goosebumps: “A doctor pronounces her dead. Not the news.”

When YHS started monitoring Tweets about El Paso Saturday afternoon, there were dozens of amateur Cronkites who passed along “news.” Perhaps the exchange of misinformation is/was harmless. But this digital version of the old “telephone” game spreads a Tweet everywhere and anywhere. Remember, “viral” is defined as “of the nature of, caused by, or relating to a virus or viruses.”

The first significant Tweet (posted about 1 p.m. CDT) was already stirring the conspiracy angle (more on this later).

https://twitter.com/xlaurenstephens/status/1157742411419914240

Soon after, this.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/10/walmart-apologizes-own-school-year-like-hero-gun-display/555393001/

About 30 minutes later, this Tweet came from Piers Morgan, the British windbag. He has over six million followers, so this Tweet was significant.

“Multiple shooters” was frequently mentioned. That has become the boogeyman of mass shootings – more than a single gunman. 

Around 2:15 p.m., the first indication of the number of dead was posted by this Tweet from an Indianapolis television station. While it turned out to be reasonably accurate, the source seemed odd.

At 2:30 p.m., this Tweet from what should be a reputable source appeared to back up the multiple shooter angle.

Shannon Watts, the leader of the @MomsDemand grassroots organization to prevent gun violence tweeted at 2:45 p.m.

15 minutes later, this Twitter feed informed its 105 followers of another “news” update.

And this feed with over 1,000 followers blared this news.

There were also Tweets from the following Twitter feeds – BML Breaking News, PM Breaking News, AF (a whopping 24 followers), Shark News Wires (577 followers), I.E.N (international and breaking news, 848 followers.)

One Tweet included a photo of a Walmart store display that showed a sign saying “Own The School Year Like a Hero” over a case filled with rifles. While that was from 2017, it was repurposed and retweeted Saturday. The original photo had Walmart scrambling for an explanation two years ago.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/10/walmart-apologizes-own-school-year-like-hero-gun-display/555393001/

Let’s pause here and consider what was going on during the four hours after the first shots were fired. The Walmart was crowded with people doing back-to-school shopping. Law enforcement responded with the mission of apprehending/killing the shooter and securing the crime scene. Medical personnel were checking bodies and sending wounded to various hospitals.

Chaos.

Even those on the scene didn’t have a clear picture of what had happened or how many were dead. That information wasn’t available until hours later. 

That didn’t and doesn’t stop the Twitter Machine for spinning. There reports of as many people wounded as wound up being dead. There were reports of multiple shooters. The (as it turned out) single shooter’s motives spread faster than JFK conspiracy theories. And the digital lynch mob was readying the noose.

https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/1157754589308805120

Consider this: Had Twitter been available on 9/11, it’s questionable if the republic would have survived. Based on what occurs when there is BREAKING NEWS, the social media reaction to the on Sept. 11 attacks would have melted the Internet.

Four of the 10 deadliest shootings in modern U.S. history have now occurred in Texas. The Walmart in El Paso is an open-carry store and Texas is an open-carry state. Your Humble Correspondent has lived in the Lone Star state since 1981 but refuses to acknowledge as a “Texan.” Texas has become synonymous with “bat-shit crazy politicians.” (Yes, the competition from other states has become fierce.)

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick – whose qualifications appear to be he was a former radio talk show host who has a good haircut – was an eager guest on Fox News Saturday afternoon. There had been reports that antifa demonstrators had planned to stage protests in El Paso over immigration and border issues. Patrick, going off half-cocked, misfired with a spurious statement.

If there is a saving grace for Twitter, it’s that it archives idiotic statements such as the one made by Patrick. Here’s a perfect example from Texas governor Greg Abbott. Four years ago, he lamented the state falling behind in an important area.

And guess who has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Photoshock

It’s a slow newsday, and we’re feeling even slower, so here’s an incredible photo of a climber in Tasmania taken by Krystle Wright for National Geographic.

Wright seems somewhat of an adventurer herself

How’d she do it? Easy, as this paragraph from the story explains:

(Wright) drove to the [Tasman] peninsula, hiked two hours on a trail, rappelled a 330-foot cliff, tied a rope around her waist, jumped into the ocean, swam across the channel, and climbed up the other side. Clipping herself into a harness, she hung from a tightrope as Smith-​Gobat scrambled up the Totem Pole. At the “blue hour”—around 5:30 p.m.—Wright radioed the drone operator. When a flash from the drone overhead illuminated the rock, she pressed the shutter.

Wasn’t It Really 11 Angry Men?

Last night for the first time we watched the 1957 classic, 12 Angry Men, starring Henry Fonda (left) and Lee J. Cobb (knife). Outstanding jury room drama even if the title is somewhat of a misnomer. Fonda’s character never loses his sh*t, though Cobb’s does and often.

If you’ve never seen, the film also stars a pair of young Jacks, Klugman and Warden, as well as the actor whom I’m convinced was the template for Don Draper, Robert Webber.

Webber or Draper?

A couple other thoughts: 1) Watching this film in the age of Trump, it’s pretty transparent as to which jurors would be wearing MAGA hats outside court. It’s crazy to consider this film was made more than 60 years ago and that the stereotypes translate so readily to 2019. 2) By the characters he portrayed, Fonda was Hollywood’s indomitable original Social Justice Warrior: here, as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath and then, if you’re not convinced, as our future 16th president in The Young Mr. Lincoln. 3) Cobb was something of a one-note character actor, but only because he was so convincing as the corrupted bully: here, as the labor boss in On The Waterfront and as the gangster produce distributor in Thieves’ Highway.

Cobb. Is it just me or do you see a middle-aged Jason Segel?

One more note on Cobb: He was the first actor to play Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Death Of A Salesman that your English teacher assigned in high school but you only maybe read.

Manitoba Manhunt (Trail Grows Cold)

So now there’s a report of a possible sighting of the (allegedly) murderous duo in eastern Ontario, which is a long, long way from northwest British Columbia or northern Manitoba. Are they doing a Thelma & Louise in reverse and is the RCMP completely back at square one?

No credit card usage. No mobile phone use. Two weeks on the run for a pair of ex-Walmart employees. Beavis and Butthead are pummeling the Canadian Mounties. How?

Sand Castle*

*The judges will also accept, “Here’s Mud In Your Eye!”

In Djenne, Mali, in the Sahara Desert, you will find the largest mud brick structure on the planet. Each year the local residents work together to rebuild and refortify the Grand Mosque, which stands about 60 feet high.

I found this story on bbc.com, which is so much better for your brain than cnn.com.

Job Opening In South Bend

Earlier today our good friend Pete Sampson tweeted out that Notre Dame’s football sports information director, Michael Bertsch, was exiting South Bend for a similar gig with the Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s difficult to fault Bertschy, a good-natured and highly competent individual, for going pro. Bertschy’s predecessor at Notre Dame, Brian Hardin, is now the athletic director at Drake University in Iowa.

We mention all of this because 40 years ago—yes, 40!—Tim Bourret was a senior at Notre Dame working in the sports information office under the school’s legendary man who staffed that job for decades, Roger Valdiserri. A job was opening up in the office but Roger told Tim that he was going to hire a young man named John Heisler who was a year or two ahead of him in experience. Roger helped Tim get an interview at Clemson.

It all worked out well for everyone involved. Heisler—”Heiss”—had a four-decade career at Notre Dame that only ended last winter. He was the consummate professional who only allowed you to see his wry sense of humor if you got to know him well. Bourret thrived at Clemson, bought a nice home on a golf course, also was their hoops broadcaster, and only retired a year ago. In our business both men are universally respected and very well-liked.

So that’s the thing. Maybe you hire someone younger, but it wouldn’t be the worst idea if Notre Dame offered Bourret or Heisler a senior consultant gig now that Bertsch is making his exodus. Then again, they both now live in warmer climes (Heisler is at UCF) and I doubt they’d give up the lives they’ve worked long and hard to earn.