The American Spectator

TAS Live

(Page 2 of 3)

The other side has this really evilly good runner, number 32, a muscular brute who is literally unstoppable when he gets going. Tommy came over to me and said, "He's a wrestler and I am going to be wrestling him." Tommy gave me an amused look, as if to say, "Que sera, sera." I would have been terrified, but Tommy took the prospect of being on the mat with this monster well.

The game turned out to be agonizingly close. Down by almost a hopeless margin at the end of the first quarter, Williston was ahead by the middle of the fourth quarter. Then there were a few mishaps, and number 32, Godzilla, was put in again, and Williston barely lost.

I have to say they played beautifully and I led an extended ovation for our side from the sidelines. The leaves on the sugar maples were yellow. There was a small lake near the field. There was no KGB, no Gestapo, no OGPU. There were no angry, snarling people. Everyone was proud of his or her child. We all had plenty to eat. We have the Constitution. I have my strong, mathematical genius son and my beautiful, good-natured, endlessly patient wife. La dolce vita.

In the car on the way back, I slept, saying thanks to God over and over and over again.

But how I miss my son. He has the most beautiful blue green eyes, like a cherub. A mighty football playing monster teenage-sullen cherub.

Suddenly, I awakened and could see from the freeway the towers and spires of Yale in beloved New Haven. What a shiver went through me. You can hardly imagine the times I had at Yale. First terrible as a result of being poisoned by the Yale clinic when I had slight anxiety. (They gave me mellaril, which is a potent anti-psychotic, which left me literally paralyzed. As soon as I stopped taking the meds, I was fine, which is a premonitory story indeed.) Then great when I came back and became friends with Duncan Kennedy and Mopsy and Dick Balzer and John Keker and Bob and Susan Calhoun and Henry Hansmann and Alan Bentley and lots of others. Oh, Bob Spearman, great guy, too, and Jonathan Rosen. And next thing I knew, I was happy, happy, happy. Smoking and drinking until late at night. Playing bridge while stoned. Watching the snow fall on the New Haven Green. Leading the demonstrations against the war (always praying for the troops, though, and never calling them criminals and, of course, voting for Richard Nixon), snake dancing for the Black Panthers. And always, wifey, world's most beautiful girl, Alexandra Denman, saint of saints, angel in hotpants, too beautiful to be believed. And the endlessly kind, forgiving Yale Law School, nourishing mother indeed.

I felt ecstatic and thought of calling my dear pal, Nan Adams, but then I realized I would be waking her up. And then I suddenly felt so desperately old. So, so old. Those times at Yale were thirty-five years ago.

Now I am almost sixty. Time flies and it scares me. I like living. I don't want to die. I like being in good health. I don't want to be sick and have wires and tubes and scalpels in me. I like having enough money. I don't want to be old and poor.

I sat in my car with Mr. Bah at the wheel, shivering in fear. And then it struck me: I SPEND TOO DARNED MUCH OF MY LIFE IN FEAR. I always have. You cannot imagine how much of my life I have thrown away by being a slave to fear. I don't want to do it anymore. The spires of Yale receded and I thought hopeful thoughts:

Now I have tools. Tools to save my life. I closed my eyes and prayed to God to take away my fear and then to put Himself into my heart, and do you know what? He did.

I prayed to God to listen to my gratitude list: waking up in America; having a great wife and son; having work I love, having great friends and God's special gifts: Dogs and Cats.

I fell back asleep and awakened at the Essex House door. Mr. Bah had learned and had been guided by a Divine Hand. In any event, I was home.

p> Tuesday Night br> Thank you, God. The man who said that the paralyzed could walk if a Democrat were in the White House will not be Vice President. The man who mocked Iyad Allawi, Premier of Iraq, who risks his life every day to bring about a decent society, will not be President. The party that believes that it's perfectly cool to take a living baby from its mother's body and then pierce its skull with scissors and kill it while it screams will not be in charge of the Executive Branch (as they are of the media). Thank you, God.

topics:
Abortion, Constitution, Law, Iraq, Africa