Separated at birth

Which one is Tony Kornheiser, ESPN and Monday Night Football commentator, and which one is me? Hint: I'm grayer but he's younger (and taller and richer).

Hero

One of the very few heroes I have whom I've actually met died yesterday: Father Joseph Martin.

Father Martin, a Baltimore native, was a recovering alcoholic who developed a series of chalk talks based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and toured the world delivering his talks. Tapes and DVDs of his speeches have, no doubt, been seen by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people. He also co-founded Father Martin's Ashley, a recovery center in Maryland.

I met Father Martin in July of 2003 while visiting someone at Ashley. He and I spoke for, at most, five minutes. In November of 2004 I saw him again. Not only did he remember me and my religion, but he also asked a question related to our 2003 conversation. In the 16 months between meetings he had, I'm sure, spoken to thousands of people. I was astonished that he remembered our five-minute conversation.

But that's not why he's my hero.

Michael Deaver, Ronald Reagan's chief of staff and a recovering alcoholic who was a patient at Ashley and served on its board, said he'd met "presidents, kings, popes and prime ministers, but Father Martin was the most powerful person I'd ever met." Why? Because he "had the power to change people, to make them better, to make them whole again."

Directly and indirectly Father Martin saved thousands of lives, and that's not hyperbole.

But that is why he's my hero.

Big wheel keep on turning

In the past two weeks I've been contacted by three people I never expected to hear from: my first wife, my last boss (who fired me) and a girl who, in high school, once threw up in my car.

Apparently the karmic wheel is turning in mysterious ways, though I can't imagine what I've done to deserve this.

For the record I bear none of these folks any ill will. My ex-wife was, and probably still is, a great person. We just weren't great together. We both recognized that fact and moved on. My former boos taught me a lot, and although I wasn't too happy about being fired — "shocked" would probably be a better term — it ultimately changed my life for the better.

And the woman who once threw up in my car, who found me on Facebook, had to remind me about that incident. I'd forgotten all about it, and I never liked that car anyway. (She, on the other hand, was a sweetheart then, and probably is today.)

Now, though, I'm thinking about all of the people who ever wronged me, or who I wronged. Every day is a potential Ghost of Christmases Past.

I'm afraid to check my email.

Higher School

During my sophomore year of high school, the school hired two gym — excuse me, physical education — teachers for the year, with the understanding that only one of them would be kept after that year.

One, a former Marine with a buzz cut, was close to being a fascist, and was astonished when any of us didn't share his enthusiasm for sweaty physical activity. (A passion, I'll point out, that he talked about but never appeared to partake in himself.) The other had longer hair and was much more laid back, occasionally cutting class short on hot days.

Unfortunately for most of the students, gym teacher #2's car was found abandoned along the side of the road, apparently after an accident. The police found a bag of marijuana in the car and, some time later, found the gym teacher. who'd fled after the accident.

You can guess which teacher received the contract for the following year.

That teacher, who insisted on being called "Coach" by the students, would have been surprised by what we called him behind his back: his name was Schlenker, but we referred to him as Canker.

"Clueless" might have been closer. He once asked us to form a semi-circle, and we dutifully sat in front of and beside him. He looked behind him and saw no one there. "Why isn't anyone behind me? he asked. Another day, when he was teaching the health unit, he asked us which would get a person cleaner, a shower or a bath. Our consensus was the shower, because laying in a bathtub meant soaking on one's own dirty water. With a gleam in his eye — the wily Coach had put one over on the students! — he informed us we were all wrong, wrong, wrong. A bath, he said, would get a person much cleaner. Why? Because after soaking in a bath one should drain the water and quickly rinse under the shower.

Our protest that his solution was neither a bath or a shower, but actually both, fell on deaf ears.

He also, during driver's ed, insisted that the gears on an automatic transmission car were Park-Neutral-Reverse-Drive. When I offered the observation that Neutral was, in fact, between Park and Reverse, he was so incensed that he sent me to the Principal's office.

It was the best day in gym class I ever had. No one ever had to exercise in the principal's office.

Boom!

The Reno trip where I watched people get married — see post below — was notable for one other activity: breakfast with John Madden. There wasn't much breakfast, but there was plenty of Madden.

The event, which I guess I didn't mention earlier, was a convention for people in the coin-op (vending machines, video/pinball machines) industry. One of my stepbrothers was (and is) a video game guy, and he invited his brother and me to join him at his expense. We did. Most folks arrived Friday afternoon or evening, then were up late (or, in some cases, all night) gambling. Saturday morning was Breakfast with John Madden, and we were all excited to go.

Breakfast, as it turned out, meant sitting in a small theatre in the hotel while Madden spoke. Everyone stumbled in (the event was pretty early in the morning, as I recall), bleary-eyed and hungover. We all quickly discovered two problems: there was no coffee or liquids of any kind (and everyone was dehydrated) and "breakfast" was a small platter of stale Danish and muffins.

We all slumped in our seats, wishing for coffee and a nap. We got neither.

What we got was Madden, stomping around the stage like a man possessed, waving his arms and offering football stories and life's great lessons taught with sports metaphors.

Madden, apparently, feeds off the energy of his audience. We had none to give. His strategy: stomp more, wave more, get louder. The deeper we slumped into our seats, the more frenetic he became. All around the theatre, people cringed at his high volume assault.

Eventually, and mercifully, Madden reached the end of his speech. (Whether he'd plan to end it at that point or gave up on us I couldn't tell.) He left us with this:

"There are three kinds of people in this world: people who make it happen, people who watch it happen, and people who say, 'what happened?'"

I was pretty sure I knew what kind we all were.

Pay to Play

I've had pretty good luck with ATMs over the years. In fact, they've been pretty profitable.

There was the time I withdrew $100 from my checking account using the ATM at the bank across the street from my office (not my bank) and according to the receipt my account had $30,000+ in it. This was off by at least a couple of zeros. I went in and asked our comptroller, who was a friend of mine, if I'd get in trouble if I withdrew that money and later claimed I thought it was mine. "Well," he said, "you'd have to show that you had a reasonable expectation of thinking that money was yours. Is $30,000 the average amount you have in your checking account?"

The answer was obvious. I left the money where it was. A few hours later when I checked my balance it was in the hundreds, where it belonged.

Another time, I walked up to an ATM, got out my card and noticed there was already a card in the slot. Apparently, someone had forgotten to take his card. I called the number on the back (it was the Navy Federal Credit Union — why do I remember that, of all things?) but it was in the evening and no one answered. Thinking I wanted him to get his card back, I figured I'd put it in the ATM, enter the wrong PIN a few times and the machine would keep his card. The bank employees would retrieve it (and, I thought, return it) in the morning.

I inserted his card and punched "1234" in as the PIN. "1234" turned out to be his PIN. I could have drained his account. In a panic, I cancelled the transaction, took out his card and cut it up. In retrospect, I should have noted his name and called his credit union the next day to tell them that he should change his PIN.

But the real profitable incident came a couple of years ago, when I stopped at a bank on my way to work at 8:50 to withdraw some cash. I asked for $40, but the machine gave me $140, though the receipt only showed $40. thinking I'd be honest, and noticing there were employees in the bank, I knocked on the locked door to return the extra $100. The employees pointed at the clock on the wall, to show me that the bank didn't open until 9. Insistent, I banged on the door and waved the $100 bill. The employees, no doubt thinking I wanted to complain that the ATM had shortchanged me, pointed at the clock equally insistently. I tried to mime that I wanted to give them the $100 bill, but apparently my miming skills weren't good enough. After trying for five minutes to give them back their money, I gave up. They didn't want their money? Fine, I'd keep it.

That bank is now out of business. Though I doubt my $100 exploit was the reason.

Wedding Bell Blues

The first time I was in Reno, Nevada, it took me about an hour to get bored playing blackjack (I'm not a big casino person). The hotel where we were staying had a small chapel in the basement, and I thought I'd wander down there an watch people get married every 15-20 minutes.

It was even better than I expected.

I watched for an hour and a half, and it was one train wreck after another. Couples who were so drunk they were (barely) holding each other up. People who couldn't count out the money to pay for the wedding. Grooms who remarked "That's a nice name" when they heard their bride's last name, apparently for the first time.

None of them had any business getting married.

During rare breaks in the action I chatted with the minister about his job. Did people have to demonstrate any mental competence, or knowledge of what they were doing? Did people have to be sober enough to know what day it was? The answer was no: if they had ID, were old enough and had the money, that was all the minister needed. I wondered if legally marrying people who could barely stand up bothered him in any way. (I'm not being judgmental; I was just curious.) It turned out he was okay with it.

What percentage of the people he married, I asked him, were likely to remember what they'd done when they woke up the next day? What percentage would roll over, look at the person beside them and say 'Who the hell are you?'

The minister didn't hazard a guess and, by this time, he was starting to show some irritation with my questions. I left.

Did I mention the chapel was decorated in an Elvis motif?

Should you ever find yourself in Nevada — I was only there because someone else was paying for it — I highly recommend a visit to the nearest hotel which includes a casino and a chapel. You won't be disappointed.

As an aside, I had two friends who were walking by a chapel in a hotel in Las Vegas (I think they were there for a convention) and she, frustrated that they'd been dating for a long time and he hadn't asked her to marry him, pulled him into the chapel. Twenty minutes later they were husband and wife. He was still dazed when he returned home and told me about it a week later.

They're divorced now.