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Leave a comment Posted on Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, Uncategorized, World Series

Blue Heaven

Sports is a diversion and this year with the exhausting presidential political season, boy, do we all need a diversion.

I was born in the same year when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958.  Maybe that connection is why they have always been my favorite sports team.

This week, the Dodgers won their 8th World Series championship against the New York Yankees in five games.

I was too young to appreciate the marvels of the 1959, 1963 and 1965 teams, but I vividly recall the 1981, 1988 and 2020 teams.

This year’s edition may be the most inspiring.   After suffering the most pitching injuries of any other team and losing all-stars Mookie Betts and Max Muncy for months, the Dodgers still managed to have the best record in baseball.  Yet when the playoffs began, they were not expected to win the World Series; they were perceived as the underdogs.

The fact that unlike recent years they had to play meaningful baseball up until the final days of the season to secure a division title kept them on their toes.  There was no time to let up on the gas pedal with the San Diego Padres breathing down their necks (end of the cliches).

At the start of the season, the Dodgers were this year’s overdogs.  With over $1 billion of new contracts last winter, the bulk of that owed to Shohei Ohtani, perhaps the greatest baseball player of all time due to his high achievement as both a batter and a pitcher, the Dodgers were expected to win the World Series before the very first “play ball.”

However, their five-man starting pitching rotation in March was decimated come September.  Only Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the second huge acquisition after Ohtani’s, survived the 162-game season though he missed half of it due to injury; the remaining four starters were lost to season-ending injuries. 

At the mid-summer trade deadline, they signed right-hander Jack Flaherty.  Former ace Walker Buehler took two years to recover from his second Tommy John surgery and pitched poorly throughout this season.  No one gave him a chance of making it onto the postseason roster, but the Dodgers had no one else.

This gave them only three starting pitchers going into the playoffs whereas all the other teams had at least four.  What got them through the injuries was their bullpen, the highest performing of any other team.  

The role of relief pitchers has increased significantly.  In 2024, pitchers threw 26 complete games, an all-time low.  Back in 1975, Oakland A’s pitcher Catfish Hunter threw 30 complete games on his own.  Nowadays, if a pitcher completes six out of the nine innings and allows three or less runs, it is labeled a “quality start.” 

For the Dodgers, their starters barely reached five innings over the course of the season meaning the relief pitchers pitched nearly half of the total innings played.  And that trend increased during the playoffs.  In fact, due to the lack of a fourth starter, they scheduled bullpen games where up to eight pitchers were used to complete one game.   That should not be sustainable, but somehow the Dodgers rode that strategy all the way to a championship.  The Most Valuable Player award should have gone to the entire bullpen.

As the Dodgers ascended each step on their climb up to the title—winning the division, beating the Padres in the division series and the New York Mets in the championship series—their clubhouse celebrations were revelatory.  Their raw comments to reporters unmasked a gutsiness and a love for one another, an intense bonding not seen in recent memory.  Chemistry alone can’t count for success, but matched with each athlete playing for each other, lifting their teammates to another level, it made them unbeatable.

One refreshing aspect to the Dodgers’ championship is that for a change the team with the best regular season in baseball won it all.  In the past 29 seasons, the team with the best record won the World Series only eight times.

Up until 1968, baseball had two leagues:  American and National.  The first-place team in each league faced off in the World Series.

From 1969-1993, a second playoff round was added by dividing each league into two divisions, west and east, which doubled the number of teams eligible for the postseason.

From 1994-2011, a third round (division series) was added by rearranging some teams into a third central division and adding a wild card team from each league resulting in eight teams making it to the postseason.  No longer did a team have to win four postseason games; now it’s 11.

Today, more wild cards teams have been added with 12 out of the 30 teams go into the postseason.  That is why in one respect this year’s Dodgers may very well be the best team they have ever had.  And that’s why if you are a Dodger fan, you should still be grinning.  And if you a sports fan, you should feel validated that once in a while, a sports team that is the best during the regular season does win the trophy.

Seeing these high paid athletes get choked up over a game with a small ball and a long bat, their emotions catching in their throats, underscores that money isn’t everything.  Sports reminds us that joy can be found in myriad ways.  It’s up to each person to go find it.

The Dodgers’ championship is my antidote to whoever wins the election.

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Winter Cleaning

When I retired a few years ago, I began cleaning out my garage.   I bought a shredder and got rid of boxes of old financial documents that I had held on to for over 20 years.

I went through bins of souvenirs I saved throughout the years and said goodbye to much of it, saving only the most special ones.

At that time I thought I had done a decent enough job even though the garage looked just about as full as it had after I did my purge.

Three and a half years later, I am going through another cleansing of my material items.  When we decided to have our house painted inside and out at the start of the new year, I wasn’t expecting to have to pack up so much of our loose stuff—the stuff that is on bookshelves, in cupboards, on top or bookcases, etc.

In one day, my wife and I filled 20 banker’s boxes and still had more to pack but no more boxes were left.

Underneath our entertainment center was an archaeological dig.  There were videotapes, audio cassettes, DVDs, and CDs.

As I perused the titles, a thought crossed my mind.  I kept all of this with the intention of watching and listening to it again—but I never did.

Things that I thought were so important to me such as rare “This is Your Life” episodes and old Laker and Dodger games were no longer vital to my life.

It’s as if I was keeping a Brian Crosby museum of TV shows, sporting events and movies that I have seen in my life, but will never see again.

And the same concept applies to books.  When I was a young adult and began buying books for myself, my very first piece of furniture was a bookcase with glass doors.  I was so proud of that purchase for I now had something to showcase all the books that I read.

In old movies rich people had complete rooms called libraries where from floor to ceiling books were stacked.   Often there was a cool sliding ladder device that could be wheeled around the stacks when looking for books.

I fantasized that one day when I owned a house I would have a library room.  Today, I have four bookcases as well as built-in shelves on either side of my fireplace.  It looks nice.  But it is just a nice storage area.  Neither my wife or I re-read books.

Except for holiday-themed media, I don’t watch or listen to any of this stuff.   The songs that I do hear repeatedly are those on my workout playlists on my smart phone.

So, instead of restacking the shelves of these old books, my wife and I selected more than half of our books to give away.

One might think such a task would be easy, but it’s not that simple.

The 2020 pandemic shutdown ignited everyone to clean out their houses.  Suddenly, Goodwill stores are no longer accepting books, clothing, you name it.  Even they were throwing things out.

Libraries as well have applied the brakes on donations limiting one bag per customer per day.  At that rate, it would take me to the 4th of July to dispose of all my books.

Luckily, used book stores have open arms for people like me because I am giving them inventory—free of charge.   I wouldn’t take store credit if they offered it.  What for?  To buy more books?

People under 40 years old including our own children do not use hardbound books or physical videos just as they don’t write checks or use cash.  They don’t even have satellite dishes or cable to watch things; shows are solely viewed via streaming on their phones.  

Videotapes, CDs, DVDs are like the horse and buggy to them.

I’m being kind to my children by getting rid of this stuff now so that they don’t have to when I’m gone.  Besides, there’ll be plenty of my belongings left for them to throw out.  I’m still clinging to my Tex Avery cartoon collection.

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Goodbye, Noble

This is a column I knew I would have to write one day, but wished I never would.

A few days ago, my wife and I had to say goodbye to Noble, our pit bull mix dog who has been a member of the Crosby household for almost 13 years.  I’ve never had a dog live that long which makes the parting that much more hurtful.

Combined with our previous family dog Buster who was with us for over 12 years, my wife and I have had a dog for 25 of the 29 years we’ve been married.  Except for the nine months between the two dogs, our two boys do not know what home is like without a dog.

We adopted Noble from the Pasadena Humane Society on January 19, 2011.  He was about a year old so still very much a puppy in terms of behavior.  One of the workers there pointed out that he had a blue sticker on his card that meant he doesn’t interact well with other dogs, a common trait of pit bulls. 

Unlike headline stories, the vast majority of these dogs are wonderful with people.  Neither one of our pit bulls every attacked a person including our sons when they were infants.

Noble had a strong presence so we nicknamed him Personality Plus and Mr. Intensity.  His habits were always entertaining.  Every time he went outside to the backyard, he’d turn left and proceed clockwise around the perimeter of the yard making sure the coast was clear for us to come out.

Like other dogs, Noble liked the sun and followed it inside the house from room to room, making sure his head was bathed in the warmth by continuously readjusting his position on the carpet or his pillow.

Noble could recognize the engines of our cars from the street as we approached the driveway.  He would bark incessantly until the back door was opened so he could greet my wife or myself.  Then, per usual, lead us to the laundry room for his treat (wheat bread with peanut butter).

Whenever we had a visitor, he’d be sure to greet them at the door, then head into the laundry room to receive a treat.

When my wife ate her dinner on a TV tray in the living room, Noble would be frantically rolling his body on his back on the rug next to her, twisting himself into a comma while waiting for the leftovers.

There’s a hilarious video of my youngest son using a bubble wand in the backyard with a younger Noble leaping high in the air to burst each one of them.  That’s before he tore his ligaments and lost power in his hind legs.

If I went to lay on my bed, Noble wanted me to get of the bedroom and go into the living room with him.  So, he’d poke his muzzle into my body to get me up.  How I wish I could feel his wet nose on my hand one more time.

The cleverest trick Noble performed was when my wife and I would stand with our legs outstretched, me in the front, her in the back, and he would walk forward through them, turning around and emitting a short “bark,” resulting in a treat.

Noble had an internal clock as good as any Swiss timepiece.  He knew when it was time for his morning feeding (6:00 a.m.), walk (10:00 a.m.), afternoon feeding (2:30 p.m.), car ride (3:30 p.m.), and time for my wife to stop working in her home office (5:00 p.m.).  When those times occurred, he barked his head off like an annoying rooster. 

He had the largest barking vocabulary of any dog we’ve had.  His barks, which occurred more when he was happy than when he was sounding an alert, would come in two rapid back-to-back alerts, characterized by volume and pitch. 

  • Reacting to people and dogs he saw through the front room window = high volume, high pitch
  • Going for a walk = low volume, low pitch
  • Going for a ride = high volume, low pitch
  • Getting his afternoon feeding = loud volume, high pitch; more like a “woof-woof”
  • Chasing squirrels = high volume, high pitch (non-stop)
  • Hiding in the house = low volume, high pitch

Noble would play hide and go seek.  You read that right.  He would find a hiding place in one of the bedrooms, squeezing his 60-pound body underneath a desk and behind a chair, or on the far side of our bed.  Then he would bark so we would know where to find him.  Once we turned on the light and made eye contact, he bolted towards the laundry room, waiting for his reward.  He had us wrapped around his little paw.

By far his loudest and most guttural bark was when he went for a ride in the car.  I would ask him, raising the volume on the word “ride,” “Do you want to go for a RIDE in the car?”  His eyes would light up and he’d paced rapidly until I pulled out the car from the garage.

My wife would hold him back, then release the screen door as I hurriedly shuttled from the driver’s seat to the passenger rear door, timing it so I arrived before he sprinted into the car.  Often his momentum would carry him on top of the bench seat.  As he got older, I’d have to give him a boost on his tush to get him up.

As soon as I drove the car down the driveway with both rear windows all the way down, the barking would cease, and his snout would be out, ears flapping in the breeze.

It was only 10 minutes a day, but Noble lived for that ride in the car.

Once I retired in 2020, Noble was literally by my side at home.  He kept his eye on me and my movements.  I’d get up from the couch and go to the kitchen; he did the same.  I took a shower in the bathroom; he’d lie down outside the door waiting for me.

As Noble got older and had difficulty with his weak rear legs, whenever I had to get up to do something, I’d rush back so he didn’t have to rise up to see what I was doing.  I didn’t want him to budge from his comfortable Fibonacci-like circular position.

On the last day of his life, when we were transporting him to the vet, I couldn’t get him up onto the car seat.  Miraculously, during the drive, using only his upper body, he found the strength to pull himself up and put his head out the window one last time.

I was a little surprised at how emotional I got holding Noble, watching him and hearing him snore a bit as he drifted away. I told my wife, “I don’t want to have another dog” knowing full well as those words spit out of my mouth that I truly didn’t mean that.  I cannot imagine my life without having another dog.

Is it worth having a pet knowing the pain that will eventually come when they die?  Absolutely.

The thing about a pet is that you have to accept the terms of the agreement.  You receive years of unconditional love, but will have to see that pet die.

Imagine if children lived short lives.  Would people stop having children because of the intense pain of losing them? 

Think about parents with terminally ill children.  Even knowing they will outlive their kids, every one of them echoes the same sentiment:  I wouldn’t trade those few years for not having the child in the first place.

Life has joys and tragedies.  Without the sadness, there is no gladness.  Joy comes from moments that don’t last forever.

Noble enriched our lives close to 13 years.  Why deprive oneself from years of joy? 

Hall of Fame Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully described life best when talking about the status of injured baseball players.  He would say that so-and-so is listed as “day to day.”  After a pause, he would add, “Aren’t we all.”

When both of our sons left home for the first time last year—one for a job, the other for college—people would tell us, “You’re now empty nesters.”  However, that wasn’t accurate for we still had Noble.  Now, we are truly empty nesters, our house empty of dog pillows, dog food, pull toys, and lots of staring and barking.  Our hearts may be broken, but our memories are full.

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Live Outside the Box

News item:  Beyoncé and Jay-Z purchase a $200 million Malibu mansion.

Even if you had all the money in the world, wouldn’t $20 million be sufficient?  Think of how much good the remaining $180 million could do for the less-fortunate.  I mean, how many bedrooms and bathrooms can a person use?

If you feel envy of their new digs, remember this:  Beyoncé and Jay-Z still live in a box just like you and I.

Oh, it’s quite an enormous box to be sure—40,000 square feet.  But it’s still a confined interior space whether it’s a seaside castle or a 120-square foot studio apartment—it remains a box.

We spend most of our lives living in confined boxed spaces.  From womb to crib to bed to house to car to classroom to office to hospital to coffin. 

Boxes are how we store things including ourselves.

Four walls, a ceiling, a floor—basic design of human life.

People spend huge amounts of disposable income filling in that space, placing art on walls, hanging lights from ceilings, laying rugs on floors,

Think of all the boxes that you now have in your home.   A house is a box divided into smaller boxes.  The bedrooms, the bathrooms, the closets, the dressers, the shower stall, the appliances.  Years ago, a refrigerator was referred to as the icebox.

Inside the closets are boxes of shoes, memorabilia, photos.

Then we take boxes from inside the house and put them in a larger box called a garage.

You see, our lives are mostly lived in confined spaces.  People think prison is confining when in reality we are all confined.

That’s why whenever I go on a trip, I favor visiting outdoor natural settings, rural areas over cities.  National parks in particular have no walls and definitely no ceilings—unless you count the sky and the stars.

These treasured, preserved areas remind us of how insignificant and finite our lives are.  Human history makes up such an infinitesimal speck in the earth’s existence.

It is humbling to visit Zion National Park and admire mountains that are millions of years old.

Wherever you live, pay attention to the topography that was there before you were born and will remain after you are long gone.  We are but brief visitors to this blessed planet.

If more people would keep this reality in mind, environmental issues such as global warming and climate change could more effectively be tackled.  But there’s something in the human mind that prevents people from thinking beyond their lifespan.  Parents often understand this concept whenever they talk about leaving the planet better off for their children and their grandchildren.

When people talk about personal freedoms, they are overlooking the one that is so obvious, we take it for granted:  the freedom to go outside every day, watching the clouds, feeling the cool air, hearing the birds.  Because these things are always there, it’s as if they are never there, an invisible sensory experience waiting to be savored.

For what matters most is when we walk outside the box.  And that’s something celebrities like Beyoncé and Jay-Z can’t easily do.

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An Example Why 24 Hours in a Day is Enough

Have you ever had one of those days?  You know, where everything seems to go wrong.

Mine began with taking my wife to her pharmacy to pick up some medicine.

Usually it takes 20 minutes or so for this prescription to be filled.  But after that time passed with a text that her order was ready, my wife went back inside to check on what was going on.

The woman at the counter told her that they didn’t have her medicine in stock after all and for her to return tomorrow.

Flustered, we went home.  Why didn’t the employee notice on the computer screen that the medicine was out of stock when my wife first checked in?

Shortly after returning home, you probably can guess what happened next.

Yep, the pharmacy texted my wife that her prescription was ready.

If only that was the worst thing that happened that day.

When we got home, we had an ant attack in our main bathroom.  For the past few days we monitored a few ants here, a few there, and applied poison to where we thought they were entering.  Obviously they are cleverer than us in finding new ways inside.

So we killed the ants, cleaned up the mess, sprayed again.

A short while later when my son was washing clothes, my wife went to that same bathroom with the ants to discover that we had backup in the toilet, shower and tub.

Just 6 weeks earlier we had our main line rotor rootered.

Plus, two days earlier we had the plumber rotor rooter the clean out next to our laundry room and thought that problem was solved.

Wrong.

Luckily, the plumber was able to come out a short while later and snake the main line.

However, that was just step one on solving our ongoing sewer line issues. 

Clearly, something is wrong with the pipe from our house to the city line.  This will entail hiring another plumber who has a camera who can videotape what is going on in the line.  Most likely, this 68-year-old house has its original claypipe.  I researched the longevity of clay pipes:  50-70 years.

In other words, I’m going to have to replace the old pipe with new PVC pipe that will deter roots from penetrating.  Unfortunately, my line is at least 100 feet long.  I covered my eyes when I found online that this excavation and replacement can range anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000.

I needed a drink.

As my wife was calming me down from all this excitement, since the temperature outside was also rising, I put on the air conditioner.  It wasn’t working.  Great!

I added that phone call to my other list of calls to make in the morning.

But we’re not done.

My wife discovered that our other toilet had overflooded.  But our main line was just cleared.

It makes one fantasize about putting the house up for sale and moving to a brand new home anywhere.

Ah, the pleasures of home ownership!

There are times when one is glad that there are only 24 hours in a day.

Leave a comment Posted on Regis Philbin, Rose Parade, Uncategorized

Regis Philbin–an Icon who was anything but

There is an old wives’ tale that famous people die in threes.   My sister and I will often text one another whenever an old movie or TV star passes away, then comment like “two more to go!”

Just this weekend Olivia de Havilland died at 104 along with John Saxon at age 84.  But when I heard about Regis Philbin dying at 88, it bothered me.  He is one of the few celebrities which I hoped would never die.

It’s incredible to think that when his morning show with Kathie Lee Gifford went into syndication in 1988, I was doing my student teaching.  Through the years of his show I got married, had two sons, and my mother died.  No wonder I felt attached to him—he was on the air nearly half of my life.

My favorite part of the show (I’m sure many of you would concur) was the opening chat between the hosts.  I liked it primarily for its spontaneity.  The unscripted segment was refreshing compared to all other TV talk shows which are meticulously pre-written and rehearsed.  It felt more real, more authentic.

What also made is pleasurable was Regis himself who never came across as a big shot, a host with a big ego.  He was natural not pretentious, someone you could imagine talking to at a coffee shop for 30 minutes in an easy way.

I saw Regis twice in my life, both times from afar.  One time he was at a Barnes & Noble signing his book.  The line was too long; otherwise, I would have done it.

The other time was at the 2002 Rose Parade when he was Grand Marshal.  Coincidentally, I was in that parade riding in a vintage automobile.  I was one of two teachers chosen from Glendale Unified School District for the honor.

As all the floats, cars and horses lined up in the dark on Orange Grove Boulevard at six in the morning, I walked around and saw him leave the Rose Parade Tournament House after eating breakfast.  I was so excited that I videotaped it.

Because I was embarking on my new career as a teacher, I was unable to watch many episodes of “Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.”  However, whenever I was home during a week day, I would make sure to watch the opening segment to see what Broadway show he and his wife Joy went to see or which restaurant they ate at because there would always be a story about some mishap that occurred in their evening out that would put a smile on your face.

So many famous people are phonies, but Regis was the real deal.

 

 

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on COVID-19, dogs, pandemic, Uncategorized

Noble the Nudge

There is someone I know who has had the time of his life during this Pandemic-driven shutdown of life.  His name is Noble.  And he is our dog.

Noble has always been one for deep, unblinking stares that burn your eyes. We have given him two nicknames over the 10 years we’ve had him:  Mr. Intensity and Personality Plus.  Age, despite the old adage, has not mellowed him.  Now with both my wife and I home 24/7, he has turned into Mr. Intensi-TY and Personality Plus Plus.

Lately he stares at me so long, he is probably wondering why I am still at home and not at work.  He can’t believe his great fortune!

He’s my shadow following me from room to room; even when I move from one part of a room to another, he must get up and be close to me.  To an outsider, this may seem loving and adorable, but after a while he becomes a nudge.

When I sit at the dining room table, he lays on my left foot so the rest of his body can rest on the warm area rug not the cold wood floor.

When I sit in a club chair and swivels outside of his sight, Noble moves to find my face.  If I cover my face, he makes anxious noises and swerves either to the right or left in order to find the piece of my face that is not covered.  I swivel, he swivels.  It’s like a one-on-one basketball game:  I’m playing offense and he’s playing defense.

Noble has his own schedule.  He waits for me to wake up so he can get his first of two feedings.

If on the off chance I sleep in past 6:30 a.m., Noble bangs open the slightly closed bedroom door, going to my side of the bed to poke his wet nose into the my body, usually my face.

When he goes outside, he will either bark to be let back in, or his favorite way of communication, an ear-splitting body SLAM against the screen door.

Once my wife wakes and eats her toast, Noble sits motionless like a Sphinx on the area rug in the living room about 10 feet away from the dining room table.  Often he resembles the old RCA Victor dog statue.  If my wife blurts out to him with a stern “leave it,” he comically swerves his head away, but the body remains cement-like.

When my wife gets up, that’s the signal for him to stand ready in the laundry room in case a corner of a crust inadvertently falls from my wife’s hand into his open jaws.

Next on the agenda is the morning walk between 10-11.  He always looks at my wife to make sure she’s joining us.

His afternoon feeding time used to be 3:00 p.m.  Since I’ve been working from home it has receded to 2:30 p.m. due to the elongated stares, and bellowing moans.   I refuse to buckle under the pressure to feed him any earlier than 2:20.

Soon thereafter, the last item on Noble’s to-do list is a ride in the car.  This is his E-ticket.

In fact, this is when he is at his loudest.  The wildest combination bark and howl I have ever heard bursts out of his body in immense exhilaration for what is about to unfold, so much so that he keeps bouncing from backseat to front seat and back again.

Funny how he reserves his loudest barks over the most enjoyable moments of his day:  his feeding, his walk and his ride in a car.

Finally, after sundown and three and a half revolutions on his oval-shaped dog pillow, Noble settles in for the night.

What a beautiful day in the neighborhood for Noble.

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on 4th of July, pandemic, Re-opening America, stay-at-home, Uncategorized

Breaking News: A Car Wash Re-Opens

Folks, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

A rainbow is on the horizon.

Carefully, gingerly, life is coming back.

Today my wife and I went to get our cars washed.  Not at a self-serving cement partition with a water wand, but a real full-service car wash with employees cleaning, vacuuming, shining our cars.  One of the attendants was amazed to see the size of our gratuity.

If it weren’t practically illegal not to mention unhealthy, we would have given everyone we saw there a wraparound, squeeze ‘em tight hug.

Hallelujah!  It almost felt as jubilant as the day we got married.

You mean, we can actually go to a place of business and do our business there, not take out, not have it delivered, but actually get serviced on the premises?

Yep!  Just as it used to be, just 9 short (not really) weeks ago.

It felt so liberating.  After months of limited our errands to markets, gas stations and takeout, going to the car wash felt like hopping on a plane to Hawaii.  A trip.  A journey.  A holiday away from the stay-at-home, lockdown, claustrophobic atmosphere that I still have not gotten used to.

What’s next?  Will our dog groomer soon open her doors?  How about a haircut?  Will a reservation be taken for a dining experience in July or June or end of May?  An overnight getaway?  I have already received an email from a favorite inn in Santa Barbara announcing their re-opening and at 20% off.

I can smell it coming.  I can sense the joy returning to life.

This 4th of July, which most likely will not be celebrated with special concerts, firework displays or large gatherings of people, should focus on not the birth of the country, but its re-birth, celebrating the liberty from sheltering in place.  Happy Birthday to America’s re-opening.

And whenever businesses slowly re-open, be sure to embrace it.  And don’t ever take it for granted again.

Leave a comment Posted on Burbank Leader, Glendale News Press, students, teachers, Uncategorized

Column Ends, Blog Continues

As many of you know by now, the Glendale News-Press, the Burbank Leader and the

La Canada Valley Sun will no longer be published.

This means that you are reading my last column, a column I have written since early 2011.

At that time, the Times was trying out something called the 818 Bloggers and I was part of that crew.

My column, originally called “The Crosby Chronicles,” became “The Whiteboard Jungle”  by 2013.  The main focus was education, but I covered an array of issues that impacted young people.

Even though I wasn’t compensated much for my near decade-long tenure, I took seriously the responsibility of having a voice in the community.

Every other week I would agonize over the column; as any writer will tell you, good writing comes from good revisions.

Early drafts often totaled 1,500 words, too many for a 600-word column.  However, it is easier to delete words than add them, advice I often pass on to my students.

It is also easier to have a meticulous editor, my wife Sherry.

I feel bad for newspapers who have struggled mightily the past few decades with dwindling ad revenue and readership.  Losing journalists is not healthy in a democracy.  Nowadays, more people access internet posts controlled by those who are anything but real journalists.

Next time there is corruption in the cities of Burbank or Glendale, who will report on it?

The public will suffer without the fourth estate as its watchdog, especially at a time when real news gets mislabeled as fake news.

When my editor called me Thursday evening about the paper’s demise, it coincidentally was the same day I turned in my retirement papers to the Glendale Unified offices.  How strange is that?

Yes, come June 12th, after 31 years, I will return to being a private citizen, no longer a public school teacher.  Except for the first 2 weeks in September of 1989 at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles (noted for calculus teacher Jaime Escalante), I have spent all of my career at Hoover High School in Glendale.

I had several ideas for future columns lined up including one about my retirement from teaching.  Now this is a column about my retirement from working.

When people ask me, “are you sure you want to do this” my response:  it is time.  While I still have my health and enjoy my job, I’d rather leave a little too early than stay a little too late.  Besides, as Vin Scully often commented, we are all living day to day.  No one knows what our expiration is.

Still, I do feel that I have something to share, wisdom to pass on, mentoring to perform.

Veteran teachers bring a unique view that only time and experience can nurture.  A reservoir of talented and imaginative people should be tapped at a time when invention of a new way of structuring schools and teaching students is already underway, if only districts would use them in leadership roles.  It is a precious resource too often taken for granted and overlooked.

I want to thank former editor Dan Evans who hired me as well as current editor Mark Kellam.

Most of all, I thank you for reading what was on my mind.   With apologies to Maytag repairmen, writers are the loneliest guys in town.  We perform alone not knowing if anyone out there cares about the words we string together.  Each kind email received made my day.

I cling to the belief that former students now in their 20s, 30s and 40s remember something from the days with Mr. Crosby that has made a positive impact in their lives.  I know their being in my classroom made one in mine.

For those of you who are interested, I will continue writing my blog, the CrosbyChronicles.org, and plan on writing more books.  Email briancrosby1958@gmail.com.

God bless and stay well.

 

 

 

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To Catch a Thief

Strange how one alteration in a long-running pattern can turn everything upside down.

After 30 years of regularly playing racquetball early Sunday mornings at the Hollywood YMCA with a longtime friend, we had to switch to Saturdays in 2020 due to a later opening time—change #1.

Because the on-street parking in front of and across from the Y was taken, I ended up parking one block further north, an area I had never parked before—change #2.

Because the metered parking begins at 8:00 a.m. on Saturdays instead of 11:00 a.m. on Sundays, for the first time I had to put money in the meter—change #3.

Because I needed to retrieve coins from my car, I neglected to relock the vehicle (which I did not know at the time)—change #4.

My friend set an alarm on his phone for 7:57, allowing me enough time to run downstairs, cross the street, and feed the kitty for both our cars.

As I walked across from the main entrance to where my friend’s car was parked, I noticed a beat-up white sedan pull up next to mine which was one block up from where I was.  It appeared to be in position to parallel park; however, there wasn’t a place to park behind me.

Without thinking much about it, I stepped on the sidewalk and took out coins to put into the meter.

Suddenly, my eye caught a peculiar sight—my trunk had just popped up!   In a flash, my eyes quickly zoomed in to see the front passenger door open with someone half inside my car.

Instinctively I rushed over shouting, “Hey!  What are you doing?!”

Like the head of a jack-in-the-box, the rest of the man jumped out of my car.  He was in his late 20’s or early 30’s, white, disheveled looking.

“Oh, is this your car?  Sorry.  I thought this was my buddy’s car.  He said he left something here for me.”

At that point a voice inside of me said, “Brian, do not say anything else.  Get in the car fast, turn it around, and get the hell out of the area.”

Before I knew it, I made a U-turn and drove two blocks to a church parking lot, my heart pounding and my mind racing.

Lucky for me I never leave anything visible inside my car except for a pair of sunglasses and a water canteen.  And the only item in my trunk are reusable shopping bags.

But what about my registration and insurance card inside the glovebox?

I opened it up and discovered nothing had been disturbed, everything was there.

Did what just happened happened?  Was I a victim of a car burglary?

What hit me like a brick was the strong odor of cigarette smoke that must have been absorbed on the crook’s clothing.  It was so powerful that even after driving several miles with all the windows down I still could not get it completely eliminated.

I carefully walked back to the Y, looking to see if the man would still be there.

He was gone.

Within 60 seconds, he had pulled up next to my car, sized it up, pulled in front of my car, exited his, opened my unlocked passenger door, reached over to the driver’s side and pushed the release button to the trunk—clearly an activity he had mastered in record time.

I must have left the car unlocked because there was no sign of forced entry. That explains how he quickly got into my car without breaking a window.

However, if I had arrived a minute later, who knows what condition my car would have been in?

It wasn’t until I told this story to people that I realized how fortunate I was that the guy wasn’t confrontational or didn’t have a weapon.

There must have been a guardian angel watching over me that day.  How 2020 could have easily gone sideways in just four days old.