A few years back in my wondering youth my older brother took me to a concert for my birthday. He took me to see Peter Frampton whose Frampton Comes Alive album was tearing up the charts. His fiance, a girl I dated now and then, and two other couples went out and enjoyed the show...tremendously!

Also from a young age...maybe 11 or 12 or so...I went out and bought my first pair of sunglasses because of a group called ZZ Top. Yes...as the song recommended they were cheap.

I remember kind of coming into my own and recognizing that I had certain taste in things. The first album I actually spent money on was the Beatles Abbey Road. My next entertainment purchase was the first comedy album I ever owned. George Carlin's "Occupation Foole." "Think I'd spell it with a final "e" on the application just to piss 'em off," said George!

On television in my youth I had to watch a show on Friday nights called "Here Come the Brides" because my sisters were infatuated by a guy on the show named Bobby Sherman. Teeny bopper, sweetheart kind of a guy who used his recording career to jump into television. Then I had to watch Tom Jones after that because...well...my mom was infatuated with him. I think these two shows followed a show called "Love American Style." These shows would be a little corny by today's standards but were entertaining back then.

As for sports...the first hockey game I ever went to was in...Oklahoma City! My grandmother took me there at an arena that used to be on the fair grounds, I believe. The Boston Bruins used to have a farm team down there. I remember it well because at one point during the game the puck got shot up into the crowd and opened up some guy's forehead. My grandmother knew the guy. How freakin' cool was that? I've been hooked on hockey ever since.

As I've mentioned before on here I had a brush with fame from the baseball world in Detroit, MI where I went to high school. In Michigan...not Detroit. I was called a little MF'er by Sparky Lyle of the New York Yankees when some of my buddies and I were hassling him about the huge wad of chew he had going and the dirty book he was reading in the dugout. We were there that night to watch Mark "The Bird" Fydrich pitch for the hometown Tigers. Loved that about baseball and MLB back then. Sure...we annoyed Sparky which prompted his response. We deserved it and it never went any further than that.

The Twins used to have a right fielder named Hosken Powell. One day at the old Met Stadium a guy was giving Powell crap all day long during a game. One of the comments the guy made to Powell was, "Hey, Powell! Out of 500 Major League baseball players how come you have to rank 499th?" Powell waited for a second and between pitches responded to the fan, "Out of 3,000 fans here today...how come you're the only ****?" I still laugh abut that to this day.

I've met several sports "celebrities" but none as classy as former NFL and Vikings LB Matt Blair. I've never been formally introduced to Blair. But his encouragement in helping me rehab a major knee surgery was greatly appreciated. The first day our paths crossed was my first day of therapy. When I walked in Blair was working out on a CYBEX machine...and was literally moving it. His muscles had muscles. As they started to get me up to walk he came over to me, put his arm around my shoulders and said to follow him. He told me to go heel to toe when learning how to walk again and to have faith in the therapists because they were the very best at what they do. From that day on whenever I walked in and he was there or vice versa we would simply nod our heads at each other. No talking or an great relationship kind of a thing...just the nod. Four years later I was picking someone up at the airport when I walked past Blair who was in conversation with some other people. As I waited for the people I was waiting for he excused himself from his conversation and came over and asked me how my knee was doing. To this day I have still never been formally introduced to Matt Blair...but I consider him a class act.

And now as I sit around and watch what is happening in this crazy old world of ours the verse to that Peter Frampton song keeps playing over and over in my head. Only I woke up and realized that what I've been living in the past 20 years or so...could be the dream...or the nightmare. And I don't want to do that part again...but I'd gladly do what came before the past 20 years or so again! I guess people call it CHANGE...this thing that has been happening the past 20 years or so! And maybe it has been going on longer than that.

I can't stand MLB anymore It ain't about the game on the field now. Too much politics, imbeciles and arrogant people with infantile attitudes for me. Selig and Fehr and Faye Vincent and steroids and Bonds, Clemens, Giambi and recently Manny just make me sick. Not even so much that they did anything wrong...but more-so in the way they get portrayed by the media. These guys are people and in the grand scheme of things the really don't matter much. I used to sit on my porch with a baseball game where you put in your line-up and you spun a dial and what the needle landed on was what happened. As a little kid...if I wasn't actually paying ball you could find me and my friends playing that game. Take me back to those days.

We used to play table hockey. Kind of like what is now called bubble hockey. We used to play it for hours and hours and actually had tournaments playing it. If we weren't actually out skating...which we did...outdoors...for hours and hours and hours...we were playing that game. Now, these kids don't go outside and skate for hours and hours and hours. Too cold or they spend too much time in regimented hockey programs so they don't want to go outside. Parents spend too much money to have junior chase the NHL dream...and not always for the kid...to have them skate outside where no one is watching them. What a crock!

I could ramble on and on abut the NFL and how much that has changed. Back in the day...when Joe Namath guaranteed a New York Jet victory in Super Bowl #3 over the Baltimore Colts...people couldn't wait for them to get beat so this arrogant, cocky kid would have to eat his words. They didn't and he became a hero...sort of! The point is he was the different one. Now...the guy who goes to the field and keeps his mouth shut and works his ass of on every freakin' down and doesn't seek to glorify the effort for what they get paid to do...is rare! And when you retired...you freakin' retired. Now you can retire for 6 months, unretire and have the media chase down every thing ou say for months and months until youu say you will stay retired..until the next time you say you might not retire after all and that you have found another team who will play stage for our show. Only it gets boring and the retiree and the media make everyone sick of the schtick!

Unless you come to this site. Here...as we have all seen recently...change is a strong thing. And I ain't too fond of that, either. I don't recognize 3/4 of the bloggers on here now! I've seen one post by StevoinHTown...my Longhorn friend. A couple by Reverend Rhythm, SLSHusker has dropped a few comments. JokersWild and Bleed have left a few. KellyScott still can't get past it and I don't blame him. We now have bloggers who post on every half inning of KC Royals baseball games. I thought it was 2 people until I read somewhere that it was one who made up another site...apparently to communicate the scores of KC Royals baseball games to someone who actually cares. And has anyone noticed that the Featured Blogs are almost always those of Fox Sports Writers? They got a hockey guy, a baseball guy, a basketball guy, a football guy and I'm sure there is a NASCAR guy here somewhere. On one page of bogs the other day there were 16 blogs posted...14 of them belonged to their hockey guy. Apparently Fox has decided they weren't getting read enough so they have decided to force feed them to us. The problem with this is that besides wasting space they make it difficult to find blogs by people you actually want to read like the aforementioned bloggers. They (Fox Sports writers) generally never answer the comments they receive...which to me defeats the purpose of blogging. I come on here to post and make comments and get into discussion about things that I share interest in with others. I don't come on here to be inundated with sharp crisp news facts from people who have the personality of a babbling brook...that ain't got no water in it! If you were going to do this at least we could still have KSP and Lisa. I haven't seen anything by either of them since this started. At least they responded to you. 

I guess it is a Fox Sports site and they can do anything with it they want. But that doesn't necessarily mean that change is good or that change is needed...or wanted. But right now everytime I get on this site I ask myself a question...and you may be asking it of me after you read this ramble...which would certainly be your right. The question is simple really..."Who are all of you people and where the hell did you come from?"Ya'll kind of know where I come from now. Let's see if we dream again...and maybe get it right this time! And that's the bottom line!

BOOMER SOONER!!!