I have been kicking this around for years. “How many kids from the 1971 senior class at Los Angeles Lutheran High School could I recall by name?” Wouldn’t that be a fun mental challenge? Maybe? There were 132 of us in the senior class, by my count, 66 boys and 66 girls, . A small-enough […]

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Let us take a moment and indulge in some alternative prep sports history. I have been thinking about a particular high school baseball game since May 11 of 1971, when it was played. It was the final game of the season, and of my organized baseball career. Had we won, on our home field at […]

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Seven of us are sharing a comfortable home near the port and downtown of Reykjavik, capital and biggest city of Iceland. On our first night there, I noticed an interesting, modern church that seemed to be made of large blocks of stone. The whole of it was painted white. And it was about 100 yards […]

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It is a cool November night, and I don’t know it yet, but I am sprawled on my back at the Cal State Los Angeles football field. Above me, a rectangular patch of vision switches on inside my facemask. On the fringes, darkness broken up by banks of electric lights. In the center, dominating the […]

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I remember being in second or third grade, at First Lutheran School in Long Beach, California, and Mrs. Bolton, our stern and 50-ish teacher asking, on October 31, “What day is this?” Lots of hands were raised, including mine, no doubt (I loved to be called on) and someone was picked and triumphantly blurted: “Halloween!” […]

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On October 31, 1517, a German monk named Martin Luther posted on a church door a list of 95 issues he thought the Roman Catholic church should address. That act, just short of 500 years ago, led to the Protestant Reformation — an event which changed Europe irrevocably and next month will be observed in […]

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