I was sitting with my wife in the Albuquerque International Sunport, the Gardunos Chile Packing Company and Cantina to be specific.  It was 2001.  We were heading home after our vacation in Santa Fe.  Sitting, sipping margaritas and munching on chips and salsa, I could not help but notice all of the other people, who were undoubtedly, waiting for their flights as well.

The guy to my right was probably going home after his freshmen year in college.  He had that look; the disheveled – I’ve been up for 9 days straight studying for finals – look.  He looked chubby too.  New chubby… like beer and late night Taco Bell runs chubby.  The couple on our left looked loaded.  They were very well dressed, very classy, Ralph Lauren models.  I imagine they were either heading home to their empty nest or heading out to some exotic location like London, Madrid or Philly.  The bartender was a woman in her 40s.  She was amiable enough, but looked really bored.  She had definitely lost the love she once had for this job.  Or perhaps, she never loved this job.  Maybe she took this gig to make ends meet, so she could be home with her child or children when they got home from school.  There when they woke up.  The guy in the suit sitting across the bar was definitely here on business.  His laptop was open, his cell phone glued to his ear and he was talking loudly.  He was yelling at some poor shlub.  Apparently someone screwed something up and it was costing this guy money… more money, every minute.  He actually said “Time is money”.  I laughed.  Whatever respect and jealousy I had for him and his high action, probably lucrative lifestyle, was gone.  Anyone who actually says “Time is money”, however true it may be, loses a notch in my book.

I don’t know why these people were here.  I don’t know why the two dozen or so other people were there either.  Maybe they flew in for the funeral of a loved one or the birth of a new loved one.

My wife and I chose that spot, because we had never been there and we were and still are big fans of Southwestern architecture.  I say we, meaning she.  She chose the spot, she picked the hotels, she booked the flights and she told me when to be at the airport.  That’s why she was there.  I was there because a defining moment in my life would happen there and in order for me to not only bear witness, but to take part, I needed to be in Albuquerque that day.

A couple of months earlier, the University of Arizona: Gilbert Arenas, Loren Woods, Luke Walton and Jason Gardner, Richard Jefferson… all of them, had lost to Duke in the NCAA Basketball Finals.  With all of those guys on the roster, makes you wonder how in the world they lost.  I loved this team.  I loved watching them play.  I am a college basketball freak.  March Madness is my favorite time of year and this team had hooked me.

Sitting in that airport, I was excited to get home.  It had been a long, exhausting 6 days and I was ready to be out of our suitcase and into clean underwear.  Sitting in that airport, I was bored.  My wife and I were talked out.  We had had so many conversations in the last 6 days, that I think she may have wanted to muzzle me.  I know I did her.

The guy in the suit across the bar was still yelling about something.  I don’t what it was.  The wealthy couple could have been American Gothic for all I knew at this point.  The chubby freshmen may have been the welterweight champ of the world… nothing was computing… The University of Arizona Men’s basketball team was standing just outside Gardunos Chile Packing Company and Cantina.  I turned to tell my wife.  She was knee deep in her strawberry margarita talking to the bartender about some church we had apparently gone to a couple of days earlier.  I could not believe it.  They were standing right there! 

And that’s when it happened. 

You know in the movies where the go from a close up focus to faraway?  First they show the person in the foreground and then they refocus to show clearly, everything way behind them?  That happened to me.   My mind’s eye had subconsciously detected something in background that needed my attention.  Finally focused, there she was.  Toni Morrison.  Ms. Morrison was and still is one of the greatest writers of our time.  The best if you ask me.  In college I read the Song of Solomon.  I read this 300 plus page book in two days.  I am not a speed reader mind you, this book gripped me.

The University of Arizona men’s basketball team standing behind me: Toni Morrison sitting in front of me.  Oddly, the decision was much easier than I would have anticipated.  Like the guy and his laptop, the couple and the kid, the University of Arizona men’s basketball team faded into the background.  Where the once had my focus, they were nothing but blurred figures in the foreground.

On the fight home, I gripped that book so tightly.  I could not let go, too scared to open it.  The Bluest Eye sat, imprisoned in my hands.  Somewhere, two or three or maybe four pages in, lay Toni Morrison’s signature.  I had a signed copy of one of my favorite books, by my favorite author, ever.

Like Rainman’s father sometimes let him sit behind the wheel in the driveway, sometimes, my job allows me to do what I love to do.  Sometimes, I get to write.  Sometimes, I get to dream.

Thank you for reading.

Thought you might find this as truly amazing as I did…

I would just like to point out, that in a blog I wrote on December 29^th, 2005, I predicted that Gonzaga would lose to UCLA in the Sweet 16.

(I got most every other prediction wrong regarding just about anything, but this one I nailed!)

http://blogs.foxsports.com/NorthSideFan/2005
/12/29/2006_Heres_what_happens_in_the_Wo
rld_of_Sports

I'm seein' the future like a true psychic should!