The Art of Enjoying Suspense.

This blog entry is a reaction to what took place Saturday, Nov. 14, when Wake Forest tangled with North Carolina in Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill. I belong to a UNC message board, and what follows is my take on a thread titled BE PATIENT. If you don't know the outcome (or care), UNC erased a 21-point deficit in the third quarter and ultimately claimed a thrilling victory, 59-53. Yes, you read that score right.

Like everyone else not rooting for WF, I had plenty to say at halftime. For some reason that I have yet to fully discern, instead of posting that ire everywhere on social media, i decided to mute the TV, and take a short nap. I figured the team was headed to a massively dismal outcome, one that would destroy a significant amount of what had been accomplished in regard to team growth.

I dozed deeply and opened my eyes in time to see WF go up by 21 midway in the third quarter. I glanced at the game thread, never a beacon of patience, but rather a G spot for venting, particularly by what might be termed amateur fanatics — those with armed with titanic passion and not much else. I know this kind of fan because I'm in that camp when it comes to football. 

I've been for UNC my entire life: my family moved to Chapel Hill when i was 4, my cousin played for Jim Tatum. I've enjoyed the few highs and suffered the many lows as if a character in a Russian novel; the obvious gist has been that "we're never going to get to Moscow."

This, of course, has no bearing on my right of self-expression. And like most passionate fans, at times my emotions do most of the talking.

A friend texted me his observations about the first half defense, and most of his words can't appear here without the post being deleted. Let's just say if you were distraught, unhappy, psychically bruised and petulant, our conversation had it covered. 

Then things changed. And this is where having acumen is akin to fortune telling. Those who noticed the personnel changes, those who were aware of the ferocious verbal challenge by Tim Cross at the end of the third quarter, those who gleaned that all was not totally lost were far ahead of the Rabid & Obsessed. 

When UNC tied the game at 45-45, the first half, even the bizarre ruling that gave WF an interception — a play that I took as a sign that might have been an omen — all of that was muddy water under a bridge once considered too far.

Like everyone who bleeds sky blue, what transpired in the fourth quarter is a series of glorious, perhaps legendary, plays that will be in our collective memory forever. Sam Howell being Sam Howell, over and over and over again as well as his elusive, 20-yard TD scamper that gave UNC the lead. Great stuff.

But the one play that served as catharsis for where the program has been and where it hopes to go was Javonte's block — so lethal an official ruled it a penalty, but after reality took hold, taken back. THAT was a block for all of us. That was the block that cracked the gate on the bridge on the outskirts of our fantasy destination.

Almost too good to be true. But it is. 

We are going to Moscow.

But what about the defense, a sane observer might ask. 

Check out the title of the OP. He's got it covered.

=

A Month of a Week

The past six days felt like the country was playing checkers by mail and waiting for the USPS delivery with the next move.

I have not spent so much time in front of the same channel on cable TV in decades. MSNBC staffer Steve Kornacki evolved from a strong presence on election night to the arbiter of my reality by the weekend. I clung to his prediction of Pennsylvania as if it possessed the last remaining source of oxygen. And the grueling process seemed to happen one vote at a time, a version of water torture with a stubborn, cruel faucet.

 

What transpired after Tuesday night until Saturday morning, 11:20-ish EST might be described as a relentless stream of Ground Hog Moments, seemingly every few minutes repeated, almost verbatim.

But what a lesson on how to view votes as they come in. The hosts of MORNING JOE have already lobbied their network in favor of giving Kornacki a raise. Could not agree more.

Various guests helped fill the time with their views on where things stood and were likely headed, as well as, of course, the various legal shots-in-the-dark employed by the Trump campaign to raise doubt and encourage, if not demand, rancor.

Friday afternoon, MSNBC viewers had the great fortune of witnessing an incendiary Steve Schmidt takedown of 45 and total confidence that 46 was about to become reality. Rarely has anyone in an interview been so perfectly on point. Each syllable, each thought so keenly delivered and accurately presented with just the right amount of anger and certainty. 

 

Schmidt spoke for those who saw Trump coming in 2015 and everyone who grew to despise this mendacious nuisance, and now, all of us can gradually get used to the fact that this first wave of Trump nightmare is over. The legal issues that Trump is likely to face once he no longer has his presidential immunity might remove him from politics. That would be a great thing.

Yet, let’s not get ahead of the next two months. There’s still a petulant child in the Oval Office, and no one anticipates a smooth shift from the current administration to the newly elected team. 

Saturday night the first steps of this transition began in a parking lot in Delaware when Kamala Harris and Joe Biden spoke to all Americans.

Harris took the stage first and knocked her speech out of the park, and then some. Massively compelling, insightful, optimistic. Harris is a rising and incendiary force, and her participation, unlike most vice presidents, will be vastly effective, profoundly influential.

Then, for the first time in almost 4 years, a man who will be president spoke about what he was going to do, not what he had accomplished. Biden was energetic, forceful, and like his running mate, equally compelling, insightful, optimistic.

Love emerged on that stage and ushered hate to the sidelines. Hope replaced dread, and most important, clarity cut through what has been a fog of self-absorption, unbridled narcissism and lethal mendacity.

What a month the past week has been. During this COVID-19 phase, how could we have anticipated anything different?