Monday 12 November 2018

A Matter Of Practice


In my senior year in high school - at Poly High, here in Long Beach, California - I was a star player on our ‘C’ class basketball team.  (The category was determined by a combination of points from one’s age, height, and weight.  We C’s were the little guys.)  At the end of the first round of games - there were four other teams in our league - we were at the top, having won all of our first four games.  And, as it turned out, rather to my surprise, I was the top scorer in the league at that point.  And then something happened.  In our first game of the second and concluding round, I believe it was, I attempted a quick jump shot after retrieving a long rebound when someone from our bench yelled out “Duane - you’’re hungry!,” meaning that, in his estimation - and perhaps others on the bench? including our coach?? -  I was shooting too much.  Feeling chastened, I ‘toned it down,’ and for the rest of the season.(1)  Perhaps in the event (i.e., not just ‘in any event’), we lost a couple of our last round of games, and it all came down to our last game of the season.  With just about a minute to go in it, we were barely ahead (I think it was by just one point), when I was fouled in the act of shooting, and thus was getting two free throws for it.(2)  At that point, our coach called time out.  Obviously to help me have some time to settle my nerves before going for the shots.  But I recall being perfectly cool about it, perfectly in control of my emotions; on top of the moment.  Singleminded.  Determined.  Back on court for the shots, I sank them both; and then, on the other team’s attempt to get the ball back in play and rush down the court for most probably its last chance, one of their team fouled one of ours, and we got the ball out of bounds still down towards their basket.  Somehow, I forget why (I don’t recall being the one on our team who had been fouled that time), I was given the ball to throw in bounds, with just seconds on the clock.  I recall also being very cool about that moment too, calculating to keep my inbound throw as far away from their interception and quick run down the court to our basket as I could.  Whistle blow for action.  Fortunately, one of our guys broke free from his one-on-one defender in the direction that I was hoping to be able to throw the ball into play, i.e. away from our end of the court, and I got it in to him successfully.  Whereupon I saw an opening for the basket, and - not knowing exactly how long we had left, how long we might be able to stall - I broke for it, as he quickly threw the ball back to me, seeing what I was doing.  I went in for a layup, mede it - thus sealing the win - and seconds later the horn went off.  A win!  And after chanting our appreciation for the other team (’Two four six eight, Who do we appreciate’), and as we were walking off the court, one of the guys on our bench excitedly let us know that word had just come in that the team that was challenging us for winning the league had just lost their last game; and that was it - we were league champions!(3)                      

Where am I going with all this?  Well, since you asked:  

Earlier in the game, one of our players, a (Mormon Church) personal friend of mine, was at the free-throw line.  (Whether it was for one or two I don’t recall.)  His shot(s?) didn’t even make it to the leading rim of the basket.  Years later - approximately four, to be more precise - when, after dropping out of my university (Stanford) at the end of my Junior year there, having had a ‘spiritual experience,’ I was living in New York City, reading all I could get my hands on in their Main Public Library (which I had figured must be ‘the biggest public library in the Western world') on subjects roughly spiritual (all of the religions; theosophy; philosophy; history; ESP), I met up with this guy; who, upon graduating from Brigham Young University. was off on a ship bound for the UK and a two-year mission for his Church there.(4)  He had obviously obtained my address from my mom, and we arranged to meet on his liner at berth.  (I forget which of the major ships of the time it was.  This was the summer of 1956.)  For some reason, though he had gone on to become president of his class at BYU (or of the whole student body I forget which.  It could well have been the latter), he brought up that incident, in a sort of self-deprecatory way.  I hope that I had the presence of mind, meaning to be helpful, to say something like ‘Hey, it’s all a matter of practice.’

I had had plenty of that, leading up to my time ultimately as a star player on the basketball court as a senior at Poly High.  At one point in either my late junior high or early high school days my mother had bought me a membership in the YMCA in downtown Long Beach.  I wasn’t sure at first what to do with it, but I soon found a treasure in it.  The Y had two basketball courts in it, and I started taking advantage of the opportunity to practice my shot-making ability down there (we lived in northern LB).  Even if no one was there for a pickup game, I would go in to one of the courts and enter my routine: I would start at one side of the court in an arc about twenty feet away from the hoop and shoot until I made it, and then move on, ultimately all the way around the court to the other side, and then back; practicing layups or short jump shots in between when I missed a shot.  Over and over and over.  Two things at this point:

One was that during a pickup game down there one Saturday afternooon one of the guys on the opposing side said to me, after I had hit yet another set shot, ’Man, you must be the best shot in the County.’  Well; at least I was on those courts.  Which leads me to the other point: I found that not all basketball courts are the same size.  During my high school ‘career’ I found that the courts at other schools were/could be somewhat different.  Sometimes it took a bit to find my range there.  But when I clicked in, I could be deadly.  In set shots around twenty feet away. 

It’s all a matter of practice…

And now, in our time, I see that ’truism’ being played out in places like Broward County, Florida, where the Democrat Electoral team are so practiced at their voter-fraud ‘art’ that they are currently brazenly attempting to overthrow the Republican-led outcome of the last elections for their governor and senator by coming up with additional votes for their Democrat-party candidates from what is being sold to the public as ‘the Absentee ballots’. 

Funny how they always end up being so heavily for the Democrat candidates.  (Or Provisional ballots.)

And in the light of such info as an affidavit by a whistleblower Broward County Electoral employee from the 2016 elections who has reported that there is a backroom in the Electoral offices there where the members of the Democrat Electoral team were busily at work filling out ballots.  As part of their job.  Under the woman who, even after she has been found to have engaged in some such ‘irregular’ activity, is still there, in charge of the scam.

How come?? you may ask.  Good question.  And it very possibly involves the fact that both sides of the political aisle engage in fraudulent activity in Florida (at least).  

I am at this point reminded of a video out a number of years ago, I think it was in the wake of the curious 2000 elections, when a Congressional subcommittee was holding hearings down there, and an electronics expert was telling them how he had found out that the voting machines in use could be rigged, and he had taken that info to the Republican guy in charge of such operations at the time (Secretary of State???), who thanked him very much for his services, and that was that.  No follow-up.  At least as the expert knew about.

One can imagine, now, that the Democrat members of that subcommittee decided, not to get mad (and to help clean things up in our elections; thus honoring the sacred 'democratic' process).  But to get even.  

‘Two can play at that game.’

And our elections have become, as a consequence of such decisions, a scam, a sham, a fake, a fraud, a farce; a delusion, an illusion.(5)  With this sort of corrupt thing going on right now, not just in Broward County (and another one) in Florida, but regarding the governor’s race in Georgia, and the senatorial race in Arizona.

All, because things have become simply

a matter of practice.   

By people who don’t believe in ‘morals’  Morals are, to them, for suckers.

And definitely not for the atheistic (or satanic) New World Order crowd.  Who want Power Over Others (POO for short), in order to control them to within in inch of their lives.  In a global gulag.  Run, of course, by them… 

‘There is no right nor wrong but thinking makes it so.’  What is right is what advances my agenda, and what is wrong is what impedes it...  

The Saul Alinsky ‘Rules for Radicals’ mottos:  ‘By Any Means Necessary.’  ’Whatever It Takes.’  Whatever it takes to accomplish your end.  Lie, cheat, steal.  Kill, even.  (Think the bodies strewn in the wake of the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics, Bill and Hill.)  Because everything is relative.  There is no ultimate point to life, beyond just in and for itself only… 

Well.  We’ll see about that.

And soon.

Very.  Very.

Soon.                                     


P.S. In the first round of that season’s league, at that same school’s court where we ended up winning the league championship, at one point one of my teammates was taking a free throw.  I lined up alongside the key up near him.  (Not being one of our tallest players, I wasn’t going to be all that helpful down near the basket for the possible rebound.)  His shot hit the back of the basket rim and the ball came careening high straight back towards him/us.  I found myself automatically leaping high in its interception, took it in full stretch at the crest of my wave (as it were) in my right/shooting hand, and flipped it directly back towards the basket, where it went smoothly in, off the backboard.  That wasn’t due to a matter of practice.  That was simply being perfectly in the Tao.  
     May we all get there, ultimately, in
     the end.      


footnotes:

(1) I never checked to see how that all came out in the end.  I was determined not to be considered a show-off, wanted to be considered a good team player.  Though sometimes, you have to assert yourself in life.
   But to continue.

(2) Having missed the shot.  If I had made it, I would only have been awarded one free throw in addition.  Look up the rules, if you don’t understand the game.  

(3) And went on to take third in the All-Southern California CIF Finals Tournament.  Where I was named on the All-Star team for those Finals.  A fitting end to the season.  
     I was sad that we didn’t win the whole shebang.  But you can’t win’em all.  As they say.

(4) At that point it was no longer ‘my’ church too.  I had an open mind about all of that sort of thing; wanted Truth.  Not human interpretations, and interventions, on one’s Path, one’s Journey through the maze of Life.  There were too many questions, too many ‘anomalies,’ for an easy answer to it all.

(5) And this being the reason why the Democrats fight like mad to keep such intelligent, common-sense practices as photo ID cards out of the picture during elections.  And don’t clean the voter reg rolls, as they are supposed to, via federal law.  And push for Early Voting, which allows for Multiple Voting.  And Absentee Ballots poorly supervised; which allows for the type of scam going on in Broward County, at this very time.  And on.  And on.  And on…

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