My Picks for the NFL Season - Week 2

Now you will be sure to ask, Jim, don't you mean week 3? That's the one that's playing tomorrow. And I will say "no". Because this is my long dreamed of and finally typed out, Picks for the Week After they have played. Everybody predicts before and they're almost always half wrong, check it out. As James T Kirk is so fond of saying, "I don't like to lose!" And neither do I. But I plan to be fair. So here goes:

BEARS @ PACKERS, my pick, the Packers of course!
A boring defensive team who rants and raves about its exploits in the 80 as if they were the beloved Niners, 4 superbowls to 1, versus the offensively exciting and recent Lombardi winner the Packers? Where many of those receivers caught passes from (wait for it, and bow your heads) Brett Favre?
OK, so I was taking an online course, bettering my life, and every night at a certain time, I get a 15 minute break. It just so happened that my break coincided with the sexiest play I have seen in a long time. OK, since Tom Brady's last TD pass. 4th and long and they lined up for a FG, and I though, before it happened, I would just go for it. Well, they did. Game Over.
score 1-0

BUCCANEERS AT GIANTS, my pick...
This is where it gets tricky. I will have wanted to say that I picked the Giants, after their stinkfest against the Cowboys. But the Cowboys lost to Seattle, badly. So maybe I though the Giants would have a Super Bowl Hangover and Tampa would come in and win one. And since they almost did...
OK, my pick was the Buccaneers. And then there was that whole final play nonsense. And the logic seemed right. Maybe. Then there was that Tom Coughlin lecturing at the coach of the team who lost... yeah whatever, next...
score 1-1

RAIDERS @ DOLPHINS, my pick, The Raiders, just because they probably should be doing something besides sucking. Especially playing the suckiest team in recent memory. But they lost. And maybe something else happened. I don't really care.
score 1-2, see I am being honest

TEXANS @ JAGUARS, my pick, Texans
They're good, the QB is good, the defense is good, blah blah blah
score 2-2

The Ohio teams - whatever... I've been to Ohio, I had an Army buddy and we used to go to his house in Akron. We'd drive through heavenly Western Virginia and up the Cuyahoga something, way to go. But foot ball? And then he got out and joined some weird cult and I never heard from him again. OK, I tried to call a couple time but it was weird. I miss you Eric.
score 2-2

CHIEFS @ BILLS, my pick, home team? Sound fair? These tow haven't dome anything since 1992, when Joe Montana, may he live forever, was playing in the AFC Championship game. And the a$$hole Bills beat him, then lost to that stupid team who stole 2 Super Bowls from my beloved Niners.
score 3-2

THE TEAM WE DO NOT SPEAK OF @ THE ONE WITH THE DOG KILLER, my pick, home team here again, I guess. I actually watched part of it. I think I remember Cheerleaders... and beer. But no football to speak of. Which translates to, nothing exciting.
score 4-2

SAINTS AT PANTHERS, my pick, would NO right the ship? And prove that they are still the team that almost beat the Niners, who almost beat the Giants? Or would that team who has that guy who beat the ducks pull one out? I decided i would have went with NO. So I lost.
score 4-3

CARDINALS @ THE TEAM TOM BRADY PLAYS QB FOR, my pick... please. need you really ask? This one wasn't on the TV, so I followed online, thinking, OK, any moment they will realize it's Sunday, this is a real game. So I guess there was a fumble, and then a FG attempt. OK, they'll win. And that beautiful man will say pithy and truthful things from his soul. His bright eyes shining and his hair billowing in the wind of the press room.
no such luck.... and I join the fans in Foxboro with a loud boo.
score 4-4

VIKINGS @ COLTS, my pick, home team here. And I guess Luck did not suck.
score 5-4

REDSKINS @ RAMS, my pick, I would have wanted to pick the team who won. Because this one could have gone a number of ways. 2 first round QBs with something to prove. So it came down to one team doing something stupid at the end and the other team losing. Being a Favre fan, I know how this feels. And really, it's all about him, isn't it? He hold all the records. No one will ever get there.
score 5-5, not because I picked the loser but just because.... oh, who cares?

COWBOYS @ SEAHAWKS, my pick, Cowboys. yep. Going against the home team because they gave those Giants a whooping last week and Seattle lost to lowly Arizona. And way to go, Arizona defense! Come up with a stop in that game but then NOT do it when Kurt Warner had just bested the Mighty Steelers in the Super Bowl, the one where Bruce Springsteen played. Also the one I almost went to by myself. I had just gotten my tax return and found tickets, supposedly, online, and a flight. I knew hotels were booked but it was Tampa and warm weather. I could just rent a car, in theory, and sleep there. Plus Warren Sapp had just gotten arrested for domestic violence and spent the night in jail, there was always his room.....
Anyway, the Hawks pulled it out, rather convincingly. And I am seriously debating going up there in November when the team Tom Brady plays for will be there. I'll want to be cool, stalking him of course, but just to approach him and say, Hey Tom, good game. (He will have won, of course) And I'll ask him for his autograph, casually, and I'll have something with me. Some piece of paper. And I will post it on Facebook and feel cool for a week.
score 5-6, thanks alot Tony Romo

JETS @ STEELERS, my pick - this is one of those weird ones where I have been a Steeler fan since the 70s, always root for them, except when they played that team Kurt Warner was on in the Super Bowl, and then I rooted for the Packers, but if the Steelers had won... maybe I would just think they are too much, like that recent U2 album and tour that was popular, but i didn't really follow it. But before picking the Jets, I would have wanted to know if Tebow had come in and done something spectacular. He didn't. I watched most of this, but went to make lunch and came back and saw him in the game, doing nothing at all. So, Steelers on this one.
score 6-6

TITANS @ CHARGERS, my pick, home team.
every once in while there is that distant game in a distant land. They aren't on TV and they show if someone has scored when they do. But the uniforms don't look right. And it doesn't look real. San Diego was not wearing what I remember them wearing when my beloved Niners and Steve Young ran all over them for their 5th Super Bowl. So it was weird. And the Titans haven't seemed right since Steve McNair anyway. Come on... Kerry Collins? And then taking Matt Hasselbeck's job away? Who are the Chargers? Are they real? Can they win? They have good people. And they can make the playoffs. Just a weird situation.
score 7-6

LIONS @ 49ERS, my pick, gee, I wonder who? Although it would have been fun to have picked the Lions and then have Matthew Stafford pick them apart and assume the role of an elite QB... but he looks funny. His face is too fat and he doesn't have the je ne sais que that Manning and Brady and Rogers have. It was a fun game to watch. The Niners remind me of a story I read as a kid about the Phoenix bird. He was friends with this boy and then, as they do, the bird kills itself in a fire and then comes back. It's still the Phoenix, but it's new and different. And so it is with this Niners team. They look right, just like Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Dwight Clark, Bryant Young and Ricky Watters used to look. But they are different. Good, scary good. And maybe the fire was Mike Singletary. They had to go through it to get to the other side. No pain no gain.
score 8-6

BRONCOS @ FALCONS, my pick - Manning of course. It's all about him isn't it? How in the world was he going to come down to Georgia and lose, after shredding the Steelers. But, by the way, what is the difference between Manning doing it last week and Tebow doing it at home in the playoffs? Beating the damn Steelers, and lighting up the stadium in one of the most dramatic and memorable moments in the playoffs.... winning, right? But let's get this old geezer who was good once, a 2 time MVP, (and don't correct me and say that it is 4 because the first one he shared with Steve McNair and the last one he stole from Kurt Warner. MVP means the whole season. Not the season where you put up numbers and then go to San Diego and lose) where was I?
Right, trading Tebow for Manning, in spite of the stern warnings of a mighty Spiting from Pat Robertson.
So was this the beginning? Manning loses? 3 picks? I'm still trying to work out the Divine Plan for Pittsburgh losing.... maybe it wa to make them stronger and to make Manning proud. And pride goes before a fall....
score 8-7

So, even making picks after the games I still came up 8-7. So this is no fluke thing. See you next week.

Thoughts of my Father

I can remember my father telling me, sometime in my late teens, that he really loved the times we had together drinking tea and reading the paper on Sunday Mornings.  We would get up really early and insert ads, then load up the bags on our bikes and head out. It usually lasted an hour and when we got home we would sit and read for another hour before everyone got up. I didn’t say anything in response, just smiled… because, really, I hated him, and also those times. Most of it was being a teenage boy perhaps. But back then, my father was mean.

Many who knew and loved Jim Caruthers Sr in the last few years would not recognize the man I remember. Maybe they’d tell me that I was crazy, or I was being mean myself. In the last few years, as I have reflected back, I have tried to figure out what made him mean, but I have no real idea. And it isn’t important any more. My parents divorced when I was 17, and in typical teenage fashion, I made him the scapegoat for many of my issues, and had almost nothing to do with him until I joined the Army at 20. But I do remember one time, shortly before I left, when he and his new wife came by to drop off a present for my sister. For some reason I didn’t feel so angry, and tried to talk to him. But he said little and drove off quickly…

And it really wasn’t until 1983, after a few months in the Army, when I thought of him again. This time I had just finished seeing a new movie, Return of the Jedi, where a son and a father get back together, if only for a few minutes. I remember seeing it a lot and crying every time. And it took me a few months, but eventually I wrote my Dad a letter and told him that I forgave him and asked him to forgive me. I asked if we could start again. I felt that an effort other than a phone call was required. I pored over the words and later he told me that when he read it great tears ran down his face. I had no real response to hearing that, maybe it seemed odd. I didn’t think he cared that much. He had told me that he was a Christian now, and I remember thinking not a whole lot about that either, but the Lord and I had begun our dance through an army buddy who was witnessing to me. I stoutly refused to surrender, afraid of the whole thing.

I came home on leave and met up with my father and his wife, Wanda. At one point Wanda took me aside and in a very serious tone told me how much my visit meant to him, and how happy he was. None of my siblings wanted anything to do with him. I remember a road trip he and I took to Springfield. It felt a little awkward at first. I had spent so much time hating him, I wasn’t sure how to act. But we talked of the army and his job and other things. I remember sitting on the plane back home and thinking I really didn’t so much have a father as a 55 year old friend.

In 1988, I gave my life to Jesus on a highway in North Carolina at 11 at night. I really had no idea of what I had just done, but I remember sharing this with my father who, again, cried great tears at the news. And he told me he and Wanda had been praying for me. And again I thought, oh, okay, that’s nice.

To this day and every day of my life I will always believe that me forgiving my father was somehow a seed the Lord used to bring me to Himself. And as I sit writing this, crying, and wanting to come to my father’s service, every one of these feelings that at the time were so inconsequential, are now very powerful and emotional. Being a father myself now, I feel each one of my father’s tears over me, as I would have cried over my own sons. I feel him crying that I wanted to spend time with him, to get to know him again, and crying tears of joy that I had chosen to follow Jesus, his prayers were answered.

There was a song that came out in the eighties that had these words: “I wasn’t there that morning, when my father passed away, I didn’t get to tell him, all the things I had to say/I just wish I could have told him, In the living years.” And I am so extremely grateful that I got to tell him I loved him, that I forgive him, I believe in him, I am thankful for him and my mother adopting me, giving me a home and a start in life, that his marriage to Wanda and his walk with Jesus inspired me.

Dad, I remember the man you were… and I remember the pained look in your face a few years ago when you told me to my face how truly sorry you were. I will always see your life as a living sermon of what the Lord can do with a man who surrenders and gives his heart to Jesus. You were transformed. I read comments from people I don’t know, who remember you and your love and service and your heart… I read comments from Wanda’s daughters about how they loved you and you cared for them, and how much they miss you… and I see Jesus in your life, guiding you and teaching you and living through you. Dad, I want to be like you. I want to raise my boys like you. They will always know about you, even if their time with you was short.

Oh, that we could have those Sunday mornings over again. Maybe in Heaven there is a paper and we can ride our bikes again on those deserted Sunday morning streets, and I’ll bring my boys, and afterwards we can all sit down and just get to know each other.  But your life, Dad, has inspired me to look for those moments in my son’s lives, and teach them the good things of God, the things young boys should know, and to listen to them and find out who they are, and love them without condition. And I will love my wife like you loved Wanda, who truly misses you and has nothing but wonderful things to say about you and your life. I will truly miss you Dad, but it is a short wait until we are together again, this time forever.

And I would say to any who care to listen… don’t let the great things of life go unsaid, one to another. Learn from my father and let the Lord heal your bitterness. Call that someone and start again, even if it is difficult. You might find that they will cry great tears of joy.