Rainy Sunday

Interesting snippet from an article at nypost.com: “Holiday spending rose by 6.8% to a record $756 billion in November and December.” The speculation is the money came from what people saved from not going on trips, or to concerts and sporting events. Digital sales accounted for 70% of the increase.

Great snippet from NYP sports media critic Phil Mushnick’s column: “In 2012, objecting to Chick-fil-A’s fundamentalist, religious-based issues with homosexual marriages, Duke tossed its Chick-fil-A’s eateries off its campus. A year later, Duke was invited to play Texas A&M in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, a whole lot of money in that invite. Duke accepted, played.” Can’t make this stuff up.

RIP NBA Hall of Fame guard Paul Westphal, 70, who succumbed to brain cancer. The Celtics selected him with the tenth overall pick in 1972. He was a member of the 1974 league champions. His career flourished after he was traded to Phoenix. He was a five-time All-Star, All-NBA First Team three times, All-NBA Second Team once. In twelve seasons he averaged more than 15 points per game, four rebounds and one steal. His #25 was retired by USC and his #44 by the Suns. When his playing career ended, he went into coaching, first at the collegiate level. He led Grand Canyon College (Phoenix) to the NAIA national championship in 1988. He coached five seasons at Pepperdine with modest success. At the pro level he compiled a record of 318–279 for three different teams, finishing first in the division twice with the Suns, leading them to the finals in ’93, where they lost to the Bulls. He also served in the front office of the Mavericks and did a brief stint in broadcasting. Well done, sir.

Some colleges have such storied athletic histories that their teams being merely good is not enough. The latest casualty is Tom Herman of Texas, who went 32–18 in his four years at the helm and was 4–0 in bowl games. He will probably walk away with a big buyout and should have no trouble landing a new gig if he desires. “Hook ’em horns,” has a different meaning this day.

Last night the Heroes & Icons channel, 9–4 on ota’s in NYC, ran Gideon’s Army, episode 16 of season two of Combat! It first ran in 1963. Sgt. Saunders and his platoon come upon a mini concentration camp in France where Polish prisoners are starving and suffering injuries from experiments to which they’d been subjected. It is notable on two counts: the victims are not identified as Jews and Richard Jaeckel, speaking only German, plays a Nazi sergeant. Having seen him so many times in American military garb, it was quite surprising. Scanning the 193 titles under his name at IMDb, I counted at least 20 wherein he was in uniform, including multiple appearances on TV series. But I also found another in which he plays a German soldier, albeit an infiltrator in G.I. duds: When Hell Broke Loose (1958), starring Charles Bronson. Come to think of it, his boyish, blond good looks were a perfect fit for the Nazi image. To my chagrin, I was unable to find any info on whether he actually spoke the language or merely learned it for the part, as did James Caan in an earlier episode. He was born on Long Island and his middle class parents moved to California when he was in his teens. He served in the Merchant Marines from ‘44-’48. His career spanned 1943-’94. He received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his work in Sometimes a Great Notion (1977). He also was cast in many westerns and crime dramas. He was a close friend of Robert Blake, who said Jaeckel was the only guy he knew who was crazier than he was. He succumbed to cancer in 1977 at 70. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a pic from the episode in question or a good one from When Hell Broke Loose. Here he is as the tough as nails Sgt. Bowren in The Dirty Dozen (1967), one of my all-time favs, pure Hollywood entertainment at its best, which also starred Bronson and a host of Tinseltown icons:

It wasn’t raining hard, so I could’ve set up shop at the viaduct on Avenue Y, but I lacked the will. I filled time clearing more junk from the basement of the old house. I look forward to tomorrow’s session.

My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts

Read Vic’s Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza