A Sporting Chance

If "the love of money is the root of all evil"

(cited in one of the readings in our Episcopal church yesterday, from Paul's Letter to Timothy)

(incidentally, ever notice how it's usually misquoted as "money is the root of all evil"?),

then expectation is the root of all albatross dreams.

And sports is one of the most egregious generators of expectation.

With my team (San Francisco Giants) safely eliminated from major league baseball postseason play, I am delightfully free from the multiple albatrosses of tension, hope, expectation, success, failure, winning, and losing.

But who am I kidding?

I'd wear those albatrosses in a heartbeat, given the chance.

Crazy, huh?

Paper Chase

"There's so much

money going places

only money knows."

Bob Hicok

in

This Clumsy Living

I usually keep my money crumpled up or folded, with notes to myself, unlike Walt Whitman's songs to himself. I can't remember when I last put money in my wallet. Too bulky. The weight of wealth. The color of money: faded.


No doubt about it. Money goes to money, sticks with it, rubs elbows, holds pinkies out, makes conscience-salving donations, runs from poverty. Just watch the suits and the minks at the latest symphony fund raiser for the downtrodden.