Happy Birthday Arnold Palmer!

Some admiring jokers started www.chucknorrisfacts.com to put a farcical spin on the B-movie actor’s fantasy exploits. Example: “When Chuck Norris does a push up, he isn’t elevating himself, he’s pushing the earth down.”

It’s a hilarious bit of make believe.

In 2005, I was asked to do the daily timeline project on www.ArnoldPalmer.com and can now conclude what should be obvious to any fair-minded observer. And that is this:

The real Arnold Palmer makes even the make-believe Chuck Norris look like a candy-assed sissy.

Today is Palmer’s 80th birthday.

He declined an invitation to an interesting party this evening where some of his friends were going to salute him just for being such a great guy.

“I wish I could attend,” he told reporters, “but I’ve got some other things planned and I’ll be pretty busy that night. Sorry, I just can’t be there.”

The event? The opening night kickoff of the 2009 NFL season at Heinz Field. The Pittsburgh Steelers wanted to honor Palmer on one of the biggest nights of the year. They wanted to have more than 65,000 fans cheer him, watch video highlights of his career, and listen to heady praise of his lavish philanthropy.

But he has something better to do.

There’s an astounding humility in that polite little no thanks. I’m guessing he’s going have a small party with friends at Latrobe Country Club, but how many of our celebrities could resist the opportunity to have their already-massive egos stoked by having a crowd of that size blow kisses at them?

All America should feel better about itself today knowing we produced a man like Palmer and that he continues to thrive and inspire.

Unlike Norris, who’s becoming more famous for popping off on far right causes that embarrass even mainstream conservatives, facts about Palmer are, well, facts.

I know this because for two years it was my job to go through more than 50 years of newspaper and magazine clippings about Palmer and note what he did each and every day of his life.

As of today, the Timeline has more than 1,200 noteworthy items.

As everyone knows, he is one of the greatest golfers who’s ever lived. But a charming alchemy of small-town grit, old-fashioned good manners and heaven-sent good fortune have made his a life unique in American history. Many presidents may admire Sandy Koufax or Cal Ripken, but that doesn’t mean they’ll ever invite them to the White House to play catch.

But it’s different with golfers. And it’s different still with Palmer. That helps explain why former President Dwight D. Eisenhower showed up at Palmer’s house to surprise him on his 37th birthday on this day in 1966, and why Bill Clinton told biographers in 2000 that one of the greatest perks of being POTUS is the “opportunity to play golf with Arnold Palmer.”

An accomplished pilot who still flies his own jet, Palmer set an aviation world record on May 19, 1976, when he circumnavigated the globe in a Lear 36 in less than 58 hours.

Kirk Douglas said in 1970 that no one -- not Sinatra, John Wayne or Ronald Reagan -- has more charisma than Palmer.

He has a popular drink, The Arnold Palmer (half lemonade/half iced tea), named after him and the concoction is recognized by hip Manhattan waitresses who have no idea who Arnold Palmer is. In addition to the drink, two entire hospitals, a national golf museum, a regional airport, a PGA golf tournament, fancy club rooms and charity initiatives and scholarships too numerous to tally bear the name Arnold Palmer.

John Paul Newport of the Wall Street Journal wrote this week, “Lasting popularity of Palmer’s magnitude simply cannot be explained.”

It’s a safe bet that today Palmer will celebrate his birthday by playing some golf, laughing with some children, hugging loved ones, joking with buddies, being bold and doing something to help someone needy.

Let’s all try and join him in doing just some of the same. It’s life the way it ought to be lived.

All, but you, Chuck Norris.

You can just sit home in the dark and maybe dream about what it would be like to be a real man.

Future town halls to determine weather

Today’s raucous town halls about health care will seem tame in 15 years when states convene to determine what sort of climate they want within their own borders.

And I believe that’s what the future holds. Today, our brightest minds are meeting to work on solving our most pressing problem: global warming.

I’m one of those types of pacifists that wants to strangle strangers whenever I hear them make Al Gore jokes during cool summers or mild winters.

I’m more persuaded by the veteran Space Shuttle astronaut who recently remarked that from space our world looks a lot less white -- and he wasn’t addressing demographic trends involving border jumping Mexicans.

He’d been in space about 10 years ago and marveled at the vivid colors of our gigantic marble floating through the cosmos.

There were blues, greens and, draped atop our majestic mountain peaks, blankets of pure white.

Now he says the whites no longer dominate the world in ways that should concern even those who are sensitive to things like racial balance.

The anecdotal evidence that keeps piling up convinces me. I saw a news report about a new picture book that contrasts images of iconic mountain tops like the Matterhorn from today with 50 years ago.

And isn’t that a honkin’ great name for a mountain? Matter-Horn. Toot! Toot!

Sure, it could be seasonal deviations, but there’s a lot less snow in places where snow used to be abundant.

I believe we’re finally waking up to a problem that threatens our very existence. Government, industry and the geniuses they hire are working together to reduce green house gases.

I’m confident they will succeed and by the year 2025, global warming will be stabilized. Mankind will have scored a glorious victory.

My fear is the inevitable over-reach that happens anytime man becomes arrogant with achievement.

Entrepreneurs will modify the science and -- voila! -- soon individual states will be allowed to manipulate the climate any way they want, according to the wishes of will of the voters.

Florida will decide to regulate its climate so it’s the comfortable 88-degree high/62-degree low all us snowbirds expect when we wing off to the Sunshine State.

More than 1/3 of the population in places like Vermont and Colorado rely on winter recreation for employment. They’ll be able to turn dials in the state capitals that mean frosty conditions will prevail from Labor Day through Memorial Day, when climatic adjustments will lead to thaws and immediate transitions to summer fun.

Scarred by decades of devastating fires, Californians will go against their sunny dispositions and dial up soaking rains every two weeks

Where things will get interesting are in places like Illinois, Michigan and here in Pennsylvania. These are the places where we bitterly bitch about winter, but enjoy the change of seasons.

Fall and spring are splendid. Summer needs no adjusting. I hate winter, but do enjoy some seasonal snowfall.
If I can, I’ll vote to ensure a white Christmas and will vote for heavy snows on just 10 weekends of the year, those being whenever the Pittsburgh Steelers play a home game on outdoor Heinz Field. I love watching the great Steelers play in the snow.

But what about cranky old-timers?

Heck in 2025, I’ll be a cranky old timer.

Will some yammering kid start shouting at me that she wants to be a Winter X-Game snowboard champ and thinks Pennsylvania should be smothered in year-round snow? I could see us getting into a town hall shouting match that will make the news when I bite the tip of her sassy finger off with my false teeth.

It’s bound to be an interesting and historic time.

Of course, it’ll all be rendered moot when in 2035 scientists begin to offer iPhone applications that allow individualized weather systems.

That way the weather we’re wanting can follow us all around like meteorological mood rings.

And, no matter what the weather, that’s promises to be really cool.

Speed reading as unwanted as speed sex

I have about the same interest in learning speed reading as I do in learning speed sex.

If I’m doing something I enjoy, I want to extend the pleasure. I like it when the baseball game goes into extra innings, when the leisurely director’s cut is included in the DVD and that soothing fall weekend when we all get an extra hour of sleep.

I don’t know what the rush is when it comes to reading. I’ve read the reports that you can increase volume without diminishing comprehension, but I never want to read like I’m racing.

Time spent reading is like a stealth vacation. I want to savor every sentence. I don’t want to gulp a glorious book. I want to sip it.

Alas, I no longer have the time to read the way I always wish I could.

Ever since we’ve had children, I read like I’m cheating on a diet. I sneak a bite here and there when I think no one is looking.

It seems like I’m doing something criminal if my wife or one of the girls walks in during the daylight hours and I’m sitting in the easy chair, feet back with my nose pointed at the interior spine of a really fat book.

Of course, we spend about an hour each night reading aloud to our girls, ages 8 and 3, and that’s a joy. I hope we’re nurturing in them the same joy for reading our parents did in us. But reading Dr. Seuss’s “The Things I Think I Think” with a cartoonishly animated voice isn’t the same as settling into a book like David Halberstam’s lively 801-page book, “The Fifties.”

And after we’ve tucked the kids in we’re both too whipped to do much reading so we usually just zone out to something like a 1994 Seinfeld episode we’ve both seen a combined 324 times.

As for romance, speedy or otherwise, that’s another casualty of trying to do our very best raising our little rascals.

It is, indeed, one of life’s great ironies that the ultimate result of having sex becomes one of the greatest impediments to ever having it again.

Like many couple we want it all. We yearn to be outstanding parents with many gleeful evening hours of quality time with our darlings. We want to indulge our intellects with cerebral readings and we want to maintain an enthusiastic and vigorous love life.

We often make the mistake of trying to do all three in order and on the same night with predictable results.

We get engrossed in our books and, dang it, the moment is gone. We’re too tired for intimacy.

Hmmm . . .

Maybe there’s something to that speed reading thing after all.

Time on my hands & everywhere else

I’m thinking of getting a $75 tattoo of an $18,000 Rolex on my left wrist. It would appear jewel-encrusted, waterproof and would make even the stylish wafer thin ones look clunky by comparison.

I think a really nice timepiece is a great way to impress strangers, and I don’t have the otherwise means to do so without deception.

Plus, I have so many clocks and time-telling devices in my life that I no longer have any idea what time it really is.

Right now, the clock on my laptop says its 10:36 a.m., but if I raise my eyes slightly to the digital display on my stereo (now playing Sgt. Pepper by The Beatles) it says it’s 10:28 a.m.

Perhaps it’s fitting that my futuristic MacBook Pro is vaulting ahead in time while my Bose Soundwave plays “When I’m 64,” a 42-year-old ditty about the pending intrusions of the doddering ages (and did you catch how that last sentence shows what a materialistic brand name-dropping dandy I’ve become?).

I have three watches ranging from cheap to middle-class spiffy. With my car clock, cell phone, several scattered clocks throughout the home and the notoriously corrupt homewrecker in my favorite tavern and it would seem I’m a man with all the time in the world.

Yet, I can’t seem to find the time to precisely synchronize the dozen or so I rely on for essentials like picking up the kid at the bus stop or being on time for the weekly golf match.

“I’m sitting on my watch, so I can be on time.”

That’s a Bob Dylan joke from his 2001 song, “Bye & Bye.”

Is that posture the solution?

I’m always either late or early. Never right on time.

I’m either hurrying to get someplace or just sitting stationary killing time, a once favorite pastime of mine. That was before I read how Henry David Thoreau wondered if it was possible to kill time without injuring eternity. It brain barnicled the instant I read it and still nags at me whenever I have time on my hands.

Thoreau’s philosophical petard makes my possession of so many scattered and disagreeable time keepers seem like a crime against humanity.

I feel driven to always be doing something productive. No longer do I kill time.

Now time’s killing me.

Exchanging my unwieldy array of Babelonian time pieces in exchange for a time tattoo of a really nice watch would change all that.

It’d be a practical fashion statement, people would appreciate the eccentricity of it, and it would have the nifty benefit of relieving the pressure to always be punctual.

I’m sure I’m not alone. We’re all so stressed by constant nano-second reminders that time is running out.

Could fancy wrist tattoos ease some of our pressing worries? Is it an idea that will eventually sweep the country?

Only time will tell.

The one foul thing we all crave

This has been the summer that something we can all agree is clearly foul has been more cherished than children.

Twice I’ve enjoyed video highlights of toddler-cradling fathers snagging foul balls at Major League Baseball games.

The clips show the balls roaring in while the two thick-bellied fathers nimbly tuck the kids away and grab the balls out the sky while meeker sorts in surrounding seats dive for cover.

I’m convinced had the one guy been freighted with both a full beer and offspring, he’d have sprung up and caught the ball with his teeth.

The clips caused controversy among those who believe children are universally good and shouldn’t be put at risk over mis-struck baseballs.

As a father, I’d like to stand up and testify on behalf of the balls.

Don’t misread this as some gaudy sort of fertility boast, but I’m a man with two children and three balls. I keep them on my desk and juggle them when I get bored -- and I’m talking about the baseballs, not my daughters.

The girls, ages 8 and 3, while often fonts of pure bliss, can also sass, disobey and merrily join their mother in making vicious sport of me, the way I dress and the sound of my voice when I try and show them how I ought to be an “American Idol” finalist.

The balls, in contrast, are memories of perfect moments. Every boy growing up at one time or another dreams of being a professional baseball player and making spectacular catches in front of cheering throng.

Catching a foul is the happy collision of circumstance and skill. You have to have the opportunity, itself a rarity that some experts have calculated at one in every 1,200 every game, and a talent you either have or you don’t. Some rabid baseball fans go their entire lives without ever catching one.

I’ve caught three. All barehanded.

Two of 'em beer-handed.

I wrote the dates, the pitcher and the batter on each one and every time I hold them -- and I often do -- I’m reminded of the three days when enormous stadiums full of baseball fans cheered for me as avidly as they did the superstars on the field.

The first one was May 20, 1991. John Smiley of the Pirates pitched a curveball to Randy Reading of the Philadelphia Phillies.

I’d been at a raucous wedding the night before and was still detoxifying. It’s safe to say my system was coursing with only slightly fewer foreign substances than those of the players on the field in those innocent days that predated mandatory drug testing.

Reading hit a rocket off the facade at old Three Rivers Stadium. It was no where near our seats on the first base side, but I knew to expect a ricochet. I turned in time to see the ball -- I’ll never forget it -- coming like a bullet for right between my eyes, which I felt instantly become saucer sized.

Pure reflex, I reached up with my left hand (I had a big beer in right hand) and deftly caught it. It was a great catch. The crowd went crazy. I raised both beer and ball in salute and the crowd of more than 30,000 went crazy.

The second was May 17, 1992. Pirate third baseman Steve Buechele hit a foul off Padre Andy Benes. It struck the railing adjacent to our seat. I had to monkey over my side of the railing, catch the ball and hold on for dear life or fall 30-feet to a messy ending in the aisle below.

Thank God the vendors were slow that day or a big beer would have complicated the physics with perhaps fatal consequences.

Again a big cheer and a soul-soothing memory that, yeah, maybe I had the goods to make it to the bigs.

The third catch wasn’t nearly as special. It was August 27, 1999, with forgettable Pirate Jimmy Anderson pitching to forgettable Colorado Rocky Terry Shumpert.

It was a gentle pop up. It wasn’t difficult, but I didn’t drop it or my beer -- something fans justifiably boo when they witness it.

That catch earned nothing but polite applause and envy from those who knew my day at the ballpark had somehow become blessed.

Observant readers will note the date and understand it was 10 years ago today that I caught my last foul ball.

That’s 10 years since I’ve done anything that might make a stadium full of strangers cheer me as if I were a real Big Leaguer.

I don’t know why I felt compelled to share the story now.

I guess the realization just put me in a foul mood.

Pittsburgh columnist embraces worthy cause -- me!

The “Free Chris Rodell!” movement got off to a gangbuster start Sunday after columnist Eric Heyl of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review picked up his editorial cudgel and used it to hammer my recent arrest for trying to sell $300 worth of Steeler tickets for just $200.

It was fun for me to be on the other side of a story I’ve told so many times, that of a cherubic innocent being unjustly persecuted by stupid bureaucracy beholden to a law that should never have been enacted.

With the exception of the cherubic bit, the entirety of the previous sentence is true.

I tried to be an accommodating subject. When Eric asked if I’d been placed in hand cuffs, I was tempted to and say, “Not only that, but he tased me in place no man should ever be tased.”

When he asked if the officer mistreated me in anyway, I nearly blurted out, “Only if you believe waterboarding constitutes mistreatment.”

But those would have been lies.

Skeptics, well, my wife, keep wondering if I’m leaving something out of the story, like maybe the propositioning of an undercover hooker.

But, no, I was arrested for trying to sell an undercover officer four of my own tickets, valued at $75 each, for less than $200 for the whole bunch. That’s exactly what the citation says.

I’m awaiting a hearing date and a call from the gang over at “60 Minutes.” Justice will prevail!

Funny, in one week I was quoted as an expert in the New York Times and then just five days later revealed to be a half-assed outlaw in the paper read by all my friends.

You’d think there’d be some money in a life this interesting.

You’d be mistaken.

Eric had some fun with it and I’m happy with how it turned out. Here’s what he wrote:

Preseason games sure ticket to big fine
By Eric Heyl
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, August 23, 2009

It shouldn't be that difficult to get rid of Steelers tickets, even if they are for a preseason game.

More importantly, no one should ever — ever — get into legal trouble over tickets for any NFL preseason game. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Chris Rodell and his cousin long have owned four Steelers season tickets. They usually charitably give the preseason tickets to people who otherwise never would get to see the Black-and-Gold players in person.

"Doesn't seem right to charge for them," Rodell said. "Not when most of the guys you're going to see playing will soon be strip club bouncers down in Dixie."

Rodell, 46, of Latrobe is a freelance writer. In this economy, that means he usually is one benevolent editor's assignment away from playing Stratego with other residents of the homeless encampment under the overpass.

So this year, Rodell was determined to get some money for the tickets, which have a face value of $75 apiece. But he had trouble finding a buyer for the Steelers' exhibition opener against the Arizona Cardinals.

None of his friends were interested.

"Everyone has a nice big-screen TV at home now and would rather drink (their own) beers than the $7 ones the crooks at Heinz Field charge for warm stadium brew," Rodell said.

He attempted to sell them via Ticketmaster's online ticket exchange site, but found it apparently only brokers regular-season tickets. He tried to peddle them on Craigslist, but got nary a nibble.

So Rodell and a buddy ventured to the North Shore the night of the game with a plan. Rodell would sell the tickets for whatever he could get, and then use some of the proceeds for liquid refreshments while watching the action at a nearby sports bar.

After negotiations with several prospective purchasers went nowhere, Rodell was approached by a guy in a Hines Ward jersey.

He asked how much Rodell wanted for the $300 worth of tickets.

Not wanting to price gouge, Rodell asked what he thought was a reasonable price of $200.

"That's when he pulled out a Pittsburgh Police badge and told me I was under arrest," Rodell said. "I was arrested by Hines Ward."

That Rodell was attempting to sell his own tickets for less than their original cost was irrelevant.

He didn't have a city license authorizing him to resell the tickets. He wasn't in the legal ticket reselling zone next to the portable toilets near North Shore Drive and Tony Dorsett Way.

Rodell has an upcoming hearing before a district judge. Ironically, he faces a fine equal to the face value of the tickets he was trying to sell — $300.

He didn't hesitate when asked if getting arrested while attempting to consummate a money-losing business transaction has taught him anything.

"If you have preseason tickets and you don't plan on using them," he said, "set them on fire."

Pittsburgh ought to be singin' in the rain

Three years from Sunday will mark the 100th birthday of beloved actor and Pittsburgh native Gene Kelly (August 23, 1912).

That gives me plenty of time to make an iconic popsicle stick statue of him “Singin’ in the Rain” and hang it from a lamp post in Pittsburgh’s landmark Market Square.

I think that kind of eyeball evidence might be what it takes to get city officials interested doing what ought to come naturally.

Ever since I returned last fall from a trip to write about golf in Wisconsin, I’ve been consumed with the idea of Pittsburgh building a Kelly statue in the heart of the city. The city is investing $5 million in a beautification project Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl says will make “Market Square an even better destination for residents, visitors and families.”

I love Pittsburgh, but sometimes I want to take its leadership and bat them over over their collective heads with a hearty loaf of Mancini’s Italian bread. A statue of Kelly singin’ in the rain from a Market Square lamp post would bring international attention to the city and not to mention tourist dollars.

Yet, I can’t get any of the magazines to let me write a story about it and my fledgling efforts to convince opinion makers have been met with shrugs. I might have to resort to writing a letter to the editor, a stinging surrender by someone who still likes to pretend he’s professional.

I wish I had the eloquence to convince city leaders that the Kelly statue would earn Pittsburgh accolades and loot.

If I can’t, maybe The Fonz can.

David Fantle of Visit Milwaukee told me that the statue of Milwaukee “native” Arthur Fonzerelli of “Happy Days” fame the city erected in 2007 has been an wholesome godsend to downtown tourism.

“It cost us $90,000 in donated sponsorships to build and has in just two years earned us more than $9.5 million in worldwide media value,” Fantle says.

Today, a steady stream of visitors to central Milwaukee stop by the downtown river plaza to ape it up with the “Bronze Fonz.”

Now -- ehhh! -- we all love Fonzie. But Gene Kelly is one of America’s most sparkling icons.

And for me it’s all because of that joyful dance he made famous in the 1952 movie.

The American Film Institute in 2007 ranked “Singin’ in the Rain” as the fifth greatest American movie of all time. These experts in cinematic glories ranked it ahead of “Gone With The Wind” (6), and “The Wizard of Oz,” (10).

Only “Citizen Kane,” “The Godfather,” “Casablanca” and “Raging Bull” ranked (in order) better than the great Kelly vehicle.

Not a man or woman alive can’t relate at some level to that euphoric dance. Released nearly two years before the birth of Howard Stern, that dance is an upraised middle finger to anyone who finds themselves caught without an umbrella in the crapstorm of life.

Check it out. The sequence is 4:36 seconds of pure magic.

It’s particularly relevant to a city like Pittsburgh, a perpetual underdog of a metropolis despite consistent top rankings in numerous “most livable city” listings.

Once dubbed “Hell with the lid off” because of its smoke-belching crush of fiery factories, Pittsburgh today is as green and fresh as a salad bar. The mills, gone thirty years, have been replaced by high-tech upstarts, downtown universities and riverside fitness trails. Skies once choked with smoke, today crackle with free citywide WiFi.

It’s a city you can still put your arms around. Downtown is geographically incarcerated by the waters of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers. The only direction downtown can sprawl is straight up.

Leaders from all over the world are about to discover its charms as they come to town for the G-20 summit September 24-25.
Guaranteed, many of the leaders of the industrialized world learned what America is all about by watching movies like “Singin’ in the Rain.”

I hope somebody in the city picks up the baton and runs with it. Three years is plenty of time to raise awareness, funds and construct a statue that will give Pittsburgh a joyful jolt of publicity and a euphoric new image that will resonate around the world.

I’d do it myself, but I’ve got a full plate. I need to go out and rent “Singin’ in the Rain.”

I don’t want to rain on my own expertise, but I’ve never seen the flick.

I hear it’s pretty good.