I just don’t know where the time all went. But it went pretty fast. And I was reminded of that again today (Tuesday, June 4) when the legendary “Secretary of Defense”, Deacon Jones died.
His death really hits me hard, especially after I glanced at his age. Deacon was 74. Man, that’s old. Then I realized I would be 73 in five short days. What is going on with this? Deacon couldn’t have been that old. And I’m not that old, either.
It seems just like yesterday that I was enjoying watching the Los Angeles Rams and their Fearsome Foursome of Roosevelt Grier, Merlin Olsen, Lamar Lundy and the sack master, Deacon Jones. They were awesome, incredible, amazing. And now they are all gone except Grier, who is 80.
There was a good story on Jones’ passing in the New York Times this morning. It was written by Richard Goldstein and in part of the story, Goldstein refers to Hall of Fame quarterback Sonny Jurgensen talking about the time his Redskins were trailing the Rams by 11 points and late in the game Deacon falls down trying to rush him on a pass play.
Goldstein quotes Jurgensen, “He starts crawling on all fours trying to get to me. He’s crawling in the dirt like it was the most important play in the world, and I look at him and said, ‘Jeezz-us, Deacon, it ain’t the Super Bowl.’ But that’s how much he cared.”
He cared that much because of some of the racist stuff he endured and saw while growing up in Florida. It makes me sick to again think of what blacks had to go through in this country – and still go through – and this one incident shows it, and also tells a lot about Deacon and why he played the way he did.
This is what Goldstein wrote:
“David Jones was born on Dec. 9, 1938, in Eatonville, Fla., where an incident he witnessed as a youngster remained seared in his psyche and fueled his determination to escape from a dead-end life in segregationist Dixie.
“Following Sunday church services, members of an all-black congregation were mingling on a lawn when white teenagers in a passing car heaved a watermelon at the group. It hit an elderly woman in the head.
“I was maybe 14 years old but I chased that car until my breath ran out,” Jones told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1999. “I could hear them laughing.”
“The woman died of her injuries a few days later, but there was no police investigation, as Jones remembered it.
“Unlike many black people then, I was determined not to be what society said I was,” he recalled. “Thank God I had the ability to play a violent game like football. It gave me an outlet for the anger in my heart.”
It’s sad Deacon Jones is gone, and it’s awful all the racism that was rampant at one time in our society still has not been completely eradicated. Why we do to each other what we do because of color is not only insane but also horrific and beyond words to describe it.
I can’t image my grandmother getting hit in the head by a watermelon and then have the perpetrators drive off laughing. You and I both would run after them, as did Deacon. It’s just too bad he didn’t catch them.
My original thought has gotten lost in the emotional sledgehammer that the above words have dealt me. I do a lot of thinking about my past experiences and the people I have met and been friends with who are no longer with us. I don’t know why I’m obsessed with the past, which drives Mary nuts, but I am.
As I was driving around the other day, I may have discovered the reason I do this. I think it boils down to questioning the reason why we are here on this Earth. Are we just animals who pop up, live a little and then die without a cause or reason why?
Or is there some meaning to us being here?
I find it difficult to believe we show up for no reason whatsoever. It doesn’t make sense to me to be here for almost 73 years, as I have, and not achieve something meaningful that I will be rewarded for after my death, if I deserve it.
And I’m not talking about here on Earth when with death comes the honors others believe you deserve, but are too lazy or afraid to honor you with while you are alive.
If I have come here and lived this long for no reason other than to exist, well, that is not good enough for me. I need to know and to believe that my presence here is being graded and that when I pass on somebody – God? – will give me my final grade and pass me on to the next level or fail me and give me my appropriate punishment.
Otherwise it’s stupid to be just here without reason.
Deacon had heart problems and lung cancer and while I don’t know the exact cause of his death, it likely had something to do with those diseases. It’s tough to get old, I know that for a fact. I just have a hard time accepting that Deacon was old. I still think of him in terms of rushing quarterbacks like Jurgensen, and now I know why he was so good – he was trying to bring to justice the watermelon throwers.
I had not looked upon myself as getting old until the past six months or so. But I have let myself go and now I find it difficult to do the things I think I should still be doing. I walked on the track at the Bremerton Family YMCA this morning because I’m suddenly committed to get myself back into the best shape possible considering all the ailments that doctors have told me I now have.
Twice I have had my heart shocked back into normal rhythm, I take medicine that I hate to take to help my heart take the stress and extra pounds I carry around, my feet have gone south so that my balance is not good, and my neck needs to be cleaned of the calcium build up that creates the pain that prevents me from getting sleep
I saw a picture of one of my brother’s on Facebook yesterday and he looks to be in good shape, although he now looks like our dad. That means there are two of us now that looks like that.
It’s sad, really, that time has gone by so fast. As I said starting out this piece, I don’t know where it all went. All I know is I’m still here, still upright, still determined to write the stories that I hope you will find interesting. There are millions of them out there, and if you have one or two or three you want to read about give me a jingle and as the Cable Guy says, “We’ll get ‘er done.”
Deacon may be gone – sadly – but I’m still here.
Be well pal.
Have a great day.
You are loved.
