... Night before Christmas Poem ... Thanks Ramey!

                        TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF
PLASTER AND STONE.

I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO
IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.

I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,
NOT EVEN A TREE.

NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.

WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.

FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.

THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,
SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED
A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.

WAS THIS THE HERO
OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,
THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALIZED THE FAMILIES
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS
WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.

SOON ROUND THE WORLD,
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE
A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.

THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM
EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.

I COULDN'T HELP WONDER
HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.

THE VERY THOUGHT
BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES
AND STARTED TO CRY.

THE SOLDIER AWAKENED
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
'SANTA DON'T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;

I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,
I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS.'

THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.

I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED
FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.

I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.

THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, 'CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE.'

ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
'MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,!
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.'

This poem was written by a Marine.
The following is his request. I think it is reasonable.....

PLEASE Would you do me the kind favor of sending
this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and
some credit is due to our U.S. service men,women, and Canadian Forces
for our being able to celebrate these festivities.

Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we
owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us. Please,
do your small part to plant this small seed
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Silk Roads ... Thanks Dawood Kahn aka Dave Kaelin!

Silk Roads and Siamese Smiles

• THE JOURNEY SO FAR…
 
• ARCHIVES
 
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INDIANA HOOSIERS, KENTUCKY BASKETBALL, NBA DRAFT, REX CHAPMAN,TERRENCE JONES

Terrence Jones @ IU & Ubiquitous Whining plus Haters

In Sports, Stupidity, thinking out loud, UK Basketball on December 16, 2011 at 6:34 pm

I’m tired of hearing people whine about Terrence Jones and the criticism thereof.  The guy is supposed to be a leader and an All America Candidate.  He made statements that he came back to win a Championship.  He told the world that he was more mature and ready to be a leader.

A leader isn’t out at 2 AM the night before a game.  A leader doesn’t flee the scene in an attempt to hide from Coach Cal.  A leader doesn’t disappear in one of the biggest games on one of the biggest stages of the year.

That’s hard.  Yeah, it is.  Tough!  That’s life.  Cry me a river.

America has kids in the eastern Afghanistan who are doing some heavy lifting.  That’s difficulty.  That’s a challenge.  Those are warriors.  Those guy have it hard.  Some of those guys actually do give all.

When Terrence Jones has the enemy firing their RPGs and AK-47s at him from the moment he exits his front door to the moment he re-enters.  When he has to run to a bunker at 4 AM because the Taliban are shooting rockets or mortars at his base camp, then I’ll see something in these complaints.

That isn’t going to happen.  Jones, like all UK basketball players, leads a pampered life.  Most of these kids are heading to the NBA to be paid Millions to PLAY a game.  YES!  They’re going to be paid Millions to play.  A GAME!  The kid won’t actually work a day in his life.  His hands will never get dirty.  Some people got it like that.  The only way Jones will get dirty hands is if he decides to pot a plant to hang on the deck of his multimillion dollar home in 2 or 3 years.

I’m not hatin’.  More power to ‘em.  Some people got it like that and it’s likely that Jones will have it like that.  Good for him.  Just don’t expect me to cry for him when he faces a few “challenges” along the way.  Especially when those challenges are self created/self imposed.

The rest of the UK Basketball players.  The ones who do not make it to the NBA are going to get a free ride through College to a degree of their choice.  Well, if they’re smart, they get a degree.  They’ll be guided through life in ways that 99% of the rest of the kids at University will not be guided.  These UK Ballers will have a leg up on most for the rest of their lives.  That’s just the way it is.  If they don’t take advantage of it, that’s on them.  Still, they’ll have opportunities that most Kentucky Degree graduates will never have.

I don’t want to hear the whining.

They face scrutiny.  More scrutiny than most.  Yet, if they work hard, that scrutiny pays off in spades.  In diamonds and gold.  Unless they’re an idiot like Antoine Walker and they squander it all away on nonsense and a gold diggin’ Posse. (How the hell do you spend your way through 110Million Dollars in a decade?  One has to be incredibly stupid to accomplish this.)

Back to the present.  Terrence Jones had a bad game.  He had an atrocious game.  Terrible.  Everyone agrees on that.  However, no one would have been all that bothered by it IF Jones had actually been putting forth EFFORT.  I watched that game.  Jones had a look that I recognized fully.  It was the same look that Tubby Smith had in his last year at UK.  The infamous Tubby Thousand Yard Stare.  It looked like the kid was anywhere but Bloomington and in the game.  Jones wasn’t there.  I don’t know where he was, but, he wasn’t at the game.  Period.  An All America Candidate can not afford a game like that.  An All America Candidate who wants to be a Lottery Pick in the NBA next year definitely can not afford an “effort” like that.

I thought I’d seen the last of the Tubby Stare when TLT fled to Minnesota to be a Golden Goofer.  Guess not.

It was partially because of that lack of effort on the part of Jones that UK lost that game.  Not all of the blame goes to Jones.  Some credit has to go to Crean and the Hoosier kids.  Which brings me to this:

Congratulations to Indiana?  Hell No!  It’s not because I hate the IU kids.  I don’t even dislike them.  Though, Corey Zeller is a goofy lookin’ SOB.  I just don’t like IU.  I don’t like all that Red and Cream.  There’s no congratulations to IU for beating UK.  That would have been like congratulating Pakistan for obtaining Nukes (metaphorically speaking, of course).  Indiana is evil and full of hypocrisy.  I hate that they defeated UK.  I hate it even more so because they shouldn’t have beat UK.  Not this year.  Not any year that UK has this much talent. 

There’s the rub.  All that talent on the UK roster.  Coach Cal coaching.   And the biggest star of the 2011 team takes the night off.  No way IU beats UK if Terrence Jones comes out and plays like HALF of the All America Candidate that he can be.  If MKG, a Frosh, can bring it to that game, there is absolutely no reason that Terrence Jones can not bring it in that game.

I know folks who know Terrence Jones.  I’ve heard things about the kid.  It’s nothing too bad.  Just stupid things that he does.  Like being up late the night before big games.  Then he comes out and plays poorly in those games.  Stupidity is ok for normal people in normal situations.  Terrence Jones is not a normal kid in a normal situation.  He’s an Elite Basketball Talent at the University of Kentucky.  He plays Basketball at a premier College Basketball Program.  He wants to make the jump to the Pros and he want to do so in Elite Fashion.  He wants to be a Lottery Pick.

If he wants to meet these goals, he can’t be a normal kid.  That’s the way it is.  If Terrence Jones wants to be a normal kid, then he should transfer from UK and go play at Murray State or UofL.  He should give up his NBA dreams.

Then he can be a normal kid and stay up until 2 AM on the night before a meaningless game about which only 2,000 people give a damn.

However, Terrence Jones isn’t a normal kid.  He doesn’t have to be a normal kid.  He’s got a talent for the ball.  He possesses a talent for a sport that can help him reach dreams unattainable by 99% of humanity.  If he puts forth an effort for 3 more months that matches his talent, he’ll attain those dreams and he’ll be a Sports Hero.

If he doesn’t, he may end up with Josh Selby or any one of dozens of other Elite College Talents who for a myriad of reasons couldn’t or wouldn’t make the Big Stage.

That’s just life.

And hey, if he doesn’t make it in the NBA, he’s always got Europe Ball.  If that don’t work out, there’s still some work to do in the Eastern Afghan Theater of Operations.

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