The Hourly WHY: Buck Yeah
Listen to this articleTop graphic by Jeff Worman
How about this?
Tonight’s Full Moon is called the Buck Moon as the antlers of male deer (bucks) emerge this time of year from their foreheads.
Of course being here in Wisconsin, just 40 miles out of Milwaukee, it made me think of the Bucks.
You know, that one basketball team?
Buck Moon.
Does it have anything to do with the Milwaukee Bucks clinching the NBA title at home, second time only since 1971?
Probably not.
Just the same, the Phoenix Suns don’t have a moon.
And they lost.
I’m closer to the state line than Milwaukee and to avoid the crowds, the night of the final game, I thought I would go to Zenda Tap, where I sometimes go and karaoke on Sunday nights. Have a cheeseburger and fries and enjoy the game. Too close to the state line, Bulls fans, and consequently anti-Bucks fans – the loudest all rooting for the Suns.
I told a regular at Zenda Tap who said he had money on the Suns he was going to lose. Then the Bucks went down double digits – and I shut up.
At half time I left.
Me with my “Just Do It Milwaukee” t-shirt I bought in Iowa ten years ago on the bargain rack.
I wanted to reflect on their path. Looking back as a kid, my parents that have now passed on, would take my sister Shari and I to see games when they first started out at the Arena. Place where I would see bands like Deep Purple, ELO, Robin Trower.
As fans, and young, we lived near Oscar Robertson’s house, and we would hang out in his driveway hoping to get a basketball signed by him. We got out of the way when he drove up and left when the police told us to.
I think Ned Brickman went back there alone and got his basketball signed and we never talked to him again.
Tuesday, I drove on listening to local WTMJ coverage until I got back home and watched the game alone on broadcast TV talking to Shauna on the phone.
Talking with Tim Forkes, Los Angeles Post Examiner editor (as this column started out with a text and asked if that was my Hourly WHY) – he said he played during the 1971 match-up, with his High School marching band during the game. A player literally bumped into him. The kids lined the route to the locker room and asked if he was alright: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Bumping into the legend, literally!
A lot of time has passed since 1971, 50 years, but I don’t think it will take another 50 for the Bucks to get another title.
In fact, there’s another Buck moon, coming in a year from this one.
Jeff Worman lives in Walworth County, Wisconsin where there is water and a crisp, cool night sky conducive to the creative process. He has been drawing and writing since he was able to hold a pencil in his hand. Worman started out as a high school intern at the Bugle-American, an alternative newspaper in Milwaukee, and was a founder and long standing contributor to the Crazy Shepherd which emerged from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is published currently as the Shepherd Express. Worman’s column The Hourly Why was conceived in 1982, published broadly in underground newspapers over the decades and can be found online today at www.thehourlywhy.com. He has a great love of the outdoors and champions charities by riding those long distance centuries on his road bike to raise funds. Contact the author.