Odds are...

It just dawned on me that my father turned the age I'm about to turn,  the same summer I met Peggy.  I can't promise you much or be too sure of anything, but I know that Dad at 60 and I at 60 are two way different men. I do know that for sure.

I can't say with certainty that Newt Gingrich won't play third base for the Orioles next year. I wouldn't bet my life on whether or not a racehorse could beat a goat in the Kentucky Derby.  Chances are good that I won't get a call from Bon Jovi's management, saying, "Jon's sick with a sore throat and he wants you to fill in for him this weekend," but none of these things are outside the realm of possibility. 

I mean, look.  Anything is possible.  But you would see the Newtster manning the hot corner for the Birds, you'd see Bill E. Goat roaring down the homestretch at Churchill Downs, five lengths ahead of Shitferbrains, and you'd hear me singing "It's My Life" to an adoring throng outdoors at a ballpark before you would see my father, were he still among us, sitting back with a can o' suds and a Jackass DVD.

In fact, I was telling someone the other day, there are times I do things, and I feel like I'm getting heavenly intervention in my ear ("Now, connect the lead wire to the terminal, and wrap the ground around the box itself") as I do things, and every now and then I hear a voice, very dignified and somber, telling me  - asking me - what I'm doing.  This generally occurs when I am about to try to throw an extension cord over top of a telephone pole, or something else especially dunderheaded.  Dad knew what he was doing, and he advises me to this day.

Ryan Dunn, age 34 and now never a day more, was killed at 3:30 the other morning, speeding around outside of Philadelphia in his fast car.  The star of the "Jackass" oeuvres was, by all indications, drunk, and speeding.  Perhaps the fact that he got through so many stunts on tv and movies led him to feel that he was immortal. Maybe he heard some advice, and chose to pay no attention.  Don't know, and it doesn't matter now.  I can't guarantee you that you'll perish in a car crash if you're driving that car way too fast way too drunk way too late, but do you feel like pushing those odds?

The Dunn death car