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Book of the Month... October 2003 |
by Pat Conroy
“I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one. . . .There was a time in my life when I walked through the world known to myself and others as an athlete. It was part of my own definition of who I was and certainly the part I most respected. When I was a young man, I was well-built and agile and ready for the rough and tumble of games, and athletics provided the single outlet for a repressed and preternaturally shy boy to express himself in public....I lost myself in the beauty of sport and made my family proud while passing through the silent eye of the storm that was my childhood.”
So begins Pat Conroy’s journey back to 1967 and his startling realization “that this season had been seminal and easily the most consequential of my life.” The place is the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, that now famous military college, and in memory Conroy gathers around him his team to relive their few triumphs and humiliating defeats. In a narrative that moves seamlessly between the action of the season and flashbacks into his childhood, we see the author’s love of basketball and how crucial the role of athlete is to all these young men who are struggling to find their own identity and their place in the world.
In fast-paced exhilarating games, readers will laugh in delight and cry in disappointment. But as the story continues, we gradually see the self-professed “mediocre” athlete merge into the point guard whose spirit drives the team. He rallies them to play their best while closing off the shouts of “Don’t shoot, Conroy” that come from the coach on the sidelines. For Coach Mel Thompson is to Conroy the undermining presence that his father had been throughout his childhood. And in these pages finally, heartbreakingly, we learn the truth about the Great Santini.
In My Losing Season Pat Conroy has written an American classic about young men and the bonds they form, about losing and the lessons it imparts, about finding one’s voice and one’s self in the midst of defeat. And in his trademark language, we see the young Conroy walk from his life as an athlete to the writer the world knows him to be.
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GUEST ARTICLE... by Glenn Sacks
Convicted Murderess Can Get Custody but Decent Fathers Can't
Clara Harris, a Texas woman who was convicted of murdering her husband in March, was just granted joint custody of her twin five year-old boys. The ruling validates what fathers' and children's advocates have been saying for years--when it comes to children, many courts believe that mothers can do no wrong.
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DADS, DON'T FIX YOUR KIDS... NEW monthly column by , M.A
Give Your Kids Their "N" Medicine
We deal with a certain amount of frustration in our everyday adult lives. We are frustrated at our jobs, in our relationships, and by circumstances that we have no control over. Over time we learn to handle frustration and to transform it into challenges that we work through. People who can handle frustration successfully tend to have happier and more successful lives. They learn to be resilient and to appreciate what they have accomplished and what they’ve received.
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COYOTE... monthly column by Dick Prosapio
Lookin' at North Platte
Whenever we're on-the-road I tend to collect a few of those glossy handouts from the racks set up in restaurant and motel foyers. It's always the "quirky" ones that attract me, those that seem incongruous or laughable given the reality of the territory. It's not that most of these places aren't worth seeing, it's just that many of them are a bit less than "awesome"... even by the notoriously low standards used by teenagers to give value to just about everything.
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JEFF'S LIFE... monthly column by Jeff Stimpson
Riding High
The Victorian Gardens in Central Park is a cute amusement park for kids under five, with rides like Family Swinger, Circus Train, Red Baron, Crazy Trolley, and the Samba Balloon. This will be my first visit with both boys.
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Guest Article... by Dr. Linda Neilsen
Disenfranchising, Demeaning, and Demoralizing Divorced Dads : A Review of the literature - Part one
In our country today only 50% of children under the age of 18 live in the same home with their biological father. Roughly 15% live with their mother who has never been married; 15% with their divorced mother who has not yet remarried, and 18% with their mother and stepfather. Only 2% live with their father and stepmother. By the year 2000 it is estimated that only 25% of white children and 10% of black children will live in a home with their father until the age of 18, while 40% will end up living with their mother and stepfather. Put differently, within the next few years the majority of fathers will not be living in the same home with their children - and even now, the majority of fathers and teenaged children are not living together.
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Guest Article... by Wendy McElroy
Confronting Prison Rape
A bright light is about to be shone on an almost unseen social problem: prison rape. On September 4th, President Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which provides for an annual Department of Justice review on the rate and effects of prison rape. Why should you care?
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