“The Chiefs win their 11th straight in blowout fashion and earn their first playoff victory since 1985!” bellowed a pumped up ESPN sports dude. Coverage was shifting to college football and the national championship tussle between Alabama and Clemson.
Steve Levy, who I really enjoy on his “Levy Lounge” stuff with Barry Melrose was wrapping things up from Houston and talking about all the Chiefs fans who ventured south to cheer on their heroes. “There were more Chiefs fans in attendance than Texans!” was another comment. You could sure hear the KC faithful in the background having a good time. I grew up there. KC folks like to have a good time. They’re also riding real high right now with the Chiefs, World Series Champion Royals and a talented KU basketball team to boast about. The town is rocking with good vibes.
It makes me think of my father. I’m writing this on January 9, 2016. It would have been my old man’s 85th birthday. I miss him. Marvin Walter McIntosh passed about eight years ago. My folks, dad and mom, were big Chiefs’ fans and took us kids to the games all the time back in KC’s greatest times, the late 60‘s and early 70‘s that included a win in Super Bowl IV over Minnesota. It would have been great to be sitting in the stands with him for this one. I miss playing golf with him.
I’ll never forget those memories. There are many. One of our final times together forever changed my life.
The television was on but not the focus. Nope, not at all. I was between reading a book and caring for a wounded soldier, my old man. The father of four at 76 and battling cancer and heart disease had survived uncertainty and ten hours of surgery. Doctors needed to fix his heart before they could attack the tumor in his lung. It was risky, but this guy’s a Marine.
I’m reading the book when “Mac” squeezes my hand. It’s time for ice in his mouth. It was helping with dryness from anesthesia. It so happens that I was at a point in the book where the author was talking about getting along with a mentor and deciding that what the mentor was asking was reasonable and would really cost him little, but would mean a lot to their sometimes tempestuous relationship.
A light bulb went off for Barack Obama as he writes in “Audacity of Hope.” Our nation’s 44th president was talking about his often-contentious relationship with his maternal grandfather. Obama had moved to Hawaii to live with the disciplined Marine and his wife, Obama’s grandmother. They didn’t always see eye-to-eye. But one day Obama realizes, “What Grandpa is asking me to do really would cost me little but mean a lot to our relationship.”
I’m reading that “cost little, means a lot” when Dad asked for the ice. Startled, I take care of business. As he’s swooshing the ice cubes around in his mouth and away from the tubes thrusting deep into his body in the early hours after surgery, he musters in barely a whisper, “Aaaah, thank you.”
Sure, it cost me little to get off my butt and help out the old man in his time of need. Look around a bit this week. Find somebody who could use a hand. It might cost you a little but would sure mean a lot.
After the Chiefs thumped the Texans, in post-game interviews KC players and coaches gave credit to loyal fans that flocked south and took over NRG Stadium. Sure, it costs the fans a little, but it sure meant a lot to a team winning in the post season for the first time in more than 20 years.
My old man was alive then. On this day, I sure hope he enjoyed it on a big screen in the sky, surrounded by buddies, inside a favorite golf pub. It would be a fitting present for a guy whose spirit showered life with, “Costs little, means a lot.”
As a birthday gift to the old fart, let’s live our life like that this week!
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