- I think I want to scan in the ‘estate’ documents I found in his paperwork; his Dad’s will and estate listing and stuff like that.
- Probably another post or two on what the heck is going on with the house
- Donna and the American Legion
- Music; I would guess I’m about 20% of the way through digitizing the albums my Dad had (not stated as “my Dad’s albums” because I understand would be incorrect)
Two games in three hours this weekend; should be a good test of where we are at. Of course, it is hard to take anything away from winter soccer because you don’t know what the other teams are doing
Speaking of where we are at…that will be Premier 2, not Premier 1, in the spring. Even though you could make a case we are better than the last team promoted to P1…well, when you play like we did in the Fall Premier 2 is what you get. Sigh.
Anyway, onto the games. Pictures are clickable for video.
Game 4: We tie Rush Northville 1-1; we had beaten them pretty convincingly 2-0 early in the year. We are mixing things up in the back, center back and holding mids, and that change basically cost us the first goal about two or three minutes into the game. We seemed to have the run of play afterwards (by my video, we had eight scoring chances to their three). Matthew spent all of this game, when he played, at attacking center mid, and I thought did what he needed to do there. Missed one big opportunity for a good shot in front of the goal. Only played about half the game…..most of the team is only playing about this much.
(not thrilled with taping inside the 11v11 dome at Wixom; the dome is so dark and those lights cause the camera to lose focus. This picture sucks, but, Matthew has just gathered the ball in on defense near our 18’ and dribbles forward almost to midfield to start the attack)
Game 5: Beat Vardar South 1-0. We had so many kids in different positions for this game it is amazing we won, and frankly, we didn’t deserve to. They seemed to control the play and had the better chances, but, we punched one in with about five minutes to go (after we had started to take the game over five or ten minutes before that). Matthew spent this game playing holding center-mid; he was busy since we were under pressure a lot early and I thought, again, he did well in stopping them and releasing us forward on offense. Matthew is not one of the kids being tried in different roles right now…..
(another crappy picture from the video. Like I said, thought the did a nice job on defense….challenged the ball well and when he wasn’t on the ball did a very nice job of marking a man and taking him out of the play)
Futsal: The only other thing I wanted to mention here is that Matthew has been going to these 2-hour futsal sessions the last few weekends. They are not much more than pick-up soccer; a smaller ball on a basketball court BUT the kids for the most part are older than Matthew and he has found it to be pretty fun. And I think this fun, along with the challenge of having to create in a small space against bigger and faster kids, has been good for him.
It’s tough watching this brand of basketball; the teams aren’t good and we are worst than most.
There are ten teams in our division; four of them are ‘B’ teams from their various communities. We have a chance against any of these teams. The other five are literally the best kids from each community. We will get slaughtered when we face them.
The most recent games had us playing two of those ‘B’ teams….we win 25-24 against Mason and lost 42-27 to Haslett.
(click on the picture for the video. That phrase is pretty stupid; nobody at this point will ever see this. But it’s set up that way anyway. Nobody really saw it anyway before….)
Matthew and I are in disagreement about what his offensive role should be on this team. He has somehow someway gotten himself into this point guard / shooting guard role….and while I like when he handles the ball he has translated this into “I’m going to shoot from 3-point range exclusively”. This is bad for Matthew’s offense because, quite frankly, he’s not that good at it. He had two points in the game against Mason. Refused to try and get inside. Missed his four foul shots. I think he has to drive inside no matter what…..and really think that he should play the ‘5’ (the post) on offense…he is going to give up a ton of size down there to anyone and everyone BUT he will battle and get some rebounds. This will be more than he contributed in either of these games.
He plays the ‘5’ on defense….and the only reason we won or were close to winning is because even though he gives up 4 to 6 inches to every other team he stands that kid up and makes the other team battle for every inch inside.
(click. video. This picture pretty much sums up the problem I think our offense has…..nobody in the middle that is a threat to score. I don’t think Matthew is much of a threat to score against players that are four to five inches taller than him BUT he could receive an entry pass and THAT would make our offense a little more dynamic and open up the outside shooting a little bit more.)
The score against Haslett is deceiving….we were within 4 midway through the 3rd quarter. We were only down by six late in the 3rd when Matthew picked up his fourth foul. But Haslett was not stupid…..Matthew came out of the game (for the first time; he went the whole way against Mason and played until this point against Haslett) because that’s what you do when you get four fouls and Haslett spent the next two or three minutes going straight inside and pulling away. Even when Matthew came back in he had to not play as tough because he was worried about fouling out……
I was talking about the suspension in access to the blog with Suzanne recently and Matthew asked me “Why did you do that?”. And actually saying the reasons for doing it sounded a little silly while trying to explain it to him. Of course, there isn’t much about my family that doesn’t sound silly or stupid when talking about it.
For example, the most awkward thing in my life right now is when people say ‘I’m sorry’ after hearing my father has passed away. They, for the most part, genuinely are sorry and I think try and relate their experiences with their father to mine. Which is crazy when I hear it, because those layers and layers of emotions and feelings just don’t exist.
Startling realization for me about how I look at him…..the music I have grabbed from my Mom’s library is labeled in a genre called “Mom’s Music”. Dad’s stuff is “JWH”……
But, with the blog, It has been interesting turning it off…..it has definitely let me know how many people really visit here (answer: none). And I think I’ve resolved the threshold for turning it back on. We will see by then, when I do it, if anyone comes to visit at all.
And that is fine by me.
A little delayed on this, but, this is the last batch of photos I scanned in. Many were loosely stashed in books or albums, some were placed in one collage that hung on his wall (some of the photos that were missing from the photo album can be found here).
I guess a general update on all things JWH is called for here. Think we’ve decided to just sell the house as-is; will get another opinion for a realtor when I go down next week to finish painting but the first guy was pretty clear…..get what you can and get out. Blazer: title’d in Michigan, fuel system repaired, portable Bose speaker in back…..ready to go I guess. Still need to replace the pins and bushings for the front door but that will be about that for that car. Maybe do some rust-repair this summer. Compunetix stock…..what a debacle this is; he was issued it because they couldn’t pay out all of his pension since he had $$ that were pre-1987 but apparently you can’t sell the stock back to the company at any time; they have to have an open call to buy it back and may not buy all of it. Of course, they are happy to buy it dutch-auction style from you for whatever percentage of current value you want to sell it to them at.
Sigh.
I guess the other thing about these photos is that unless they were labeled this blog will never be able to tell you who some of these people are. I’ve lost all enthusiasm for asking about them at this point…..
He reenlisted for four more years; but, I haven’t seen the certificate for the final discharge anywhere….
Dad’s sister, Mary. Have been spectacularly unsuccessful at informing here of Dad’s demise; I have left messages at the phone number the internet tells me is incorrect but no replies. Of course, the simple fact that I’m trying to call her after not seeing her since I was 13 might have been a hint.
I do not remember much about her at all.
I don’t know why he would have a picture of a goat….
This photo had the word ‘Athens’ written on it. Athens GA? Just don’t know….
I think these two pictures are from a live-fire exercise Dad went to Crete for. My limited recollection of this was that a) he came back to Melanie and I having the chicken-pox…which was a big deal for him since he never had them as a kid and b) he had a nasty sun-burn and I remember large swaths of the skin on his back peeling off….
These four photos came from that photo album
