Challenger

Now we would all know within seconds. Thousands of people would tweet it at once. Your cell phone would pick up that insistent buzz that never means good news. But this was before all that, and I made it out of class and across campus and almost all the way to work before somebody on the street said that Challenger had broken in the sky.

I laughed. It had to be the punch line to some absurd joke, and I had just missed the setup. I kept walking, toward the college newspaper where I worked, and then I saw another one of the editors. As soon as I saw her eyes, I knew. She grabbed my arm and said: "Call everybody."

College can be a wonderful bubble. Tragedy is getting dumped by your girlfriend. Terror is a test you didn't study for. On Jan. 28, 1986, I was a senior at the University of Georgia and nothing really bad had ever happened to me. I was 22 but I was still a boy.

We had to put out a paper. I remember ripping updates off the old wire machine, thinking maybe this version would say it was all a mistake. The photos showed a corkscrew of smoke, like something a pilot would do to show off. But at the top of the plume, where the space shuttle was supposed to be, there was nothing.

It's weird, the things that turn you from boy to man, from girl to woman. By the time my 20s were over I was on my fourth town in my third job, had gone through a couple of hard breakups, my dad had died, and I got cancer and got rid of it. I was a grown man.

And when I trace it back I think I started feeling grown on that day 25 years ago, when all of a sudden my little college newspaper job was important, because something terrible had happened, and people were expecting us to help make sense of it, and give them something to hold on to and remember it by.

That's still, basically, my job today.

All of this is really just a way to open the door for you. If you remember that day, step in and tell your story.

Have Photo, Need Story

Here's the latest installment in an occasional feature we're going to call Have Photo, Need Story. The message below was in a box I got recently from McSweeney's, which produces all sorts of strange and interesting things. It would take to long to explain WHY this message was in the box... but it made sense at the time.



Here's what I want you to do: Assume that this sentence is the first sentence of a story, and take it from there. This blogging software doesn't give you a whole lot of space in the comments -- something like 4,000 characters, including spaces -- so we're not looking for "War and Peace" here. But see where your mind takes you. My head feels more sifted already.

Beauty in timelapse

The great Chris Jones of Esquire magazine shared this on Twitter yesterday... I doubt you'll see anything more beautiful all day. It's done by Josh Owens -- according to his Facebook page, he's originally from Columbia, S.C.

I've seen lots of timelapse photography, but I don't remember seeing any this gorgeous. Maybe it's the slow pans and scrolls within each timelapse. I wonder what a Charlotte version of this would look like.

NYC - Mindrelic Timelapse from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

By the way... does anybody know this song? UPDATE: It's "Down in the Cellar" by Dredg. Great tune.

The Friday Wrap

An icy week. Let's go straight to the videotape.

On the blog and in the paper

We walked around in the snow.

There's a great undiscovered artist, finally being discovered in Chicago.

The snow (and ice) put us in two worlds. (Note the spirited discussion in the comments. To be honest, this piece was a little too similar to the first snow piece this week. The great thing about this job is, there's always another deadline coming up. Fail better next time!)

A guy delivered his old paper route.

Stuff in other places

Forgot to mention this over the holidays, but I've got a piece in the latest issue of Our State magazine. It's on a great breakfast place in Maggie Valley.

Links on Twitter

Here's the latest from my Twitter feed, @tommytomlinson:

Bill Murray with one of the all-time great speeches. (A little raw language, but worth it.) http://bit.ly/fadzpy (via @kottke)

You might recognize the guys on the cover of the latest Garden & Gun. http://fb.me/Ns6RtzQh @AvettNation

The crowd in Tucson tonight reminded me of VaTech 4 years ago. Here's my piece from back then. http://bit.ly/i1QFhT

She won by clogging to "Soul Man." http://bit.ly/i1ZVMG via @AddThis

Been thinking about what to say on Arizona shootings. Found out Tom Junod already said it. http://bit.ly/giXzHl

Charlotte Hornets fans remember Larry Johnson as Grandmama. Now there's Grandmama sweet tea. http://bit.ly/g1cMLP (via @chrislittmann)

Please, somebody in Alabama, create a photo gallery from this. http://bit.ly/hd4AS5 (via @annargriff)

The rapture's coming in May. Not that you can do much about it. http://bit.ly/f2GG8L (via @michaelkruse)

Just realized that CLT's first 2011 murder victim is a guy I knew a little: Chris Radok. Damn. http://bit.ly/gZwJtJ

Used to run into Radok when I was music writer (93-97). Interesting guy. Here's a Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/dP7s7h

Coming up

Off Monday. Back Tuesday, completely thawed out, to tell some more stories. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Paper route

I found this on the amazing Gangrey. It's a video of a San Francisco Chronicle reporter going back to the paper route he had when he was a kid.



(I had that "Ice Cream Castles" cassette, too. Still got the CD somewhere.)

A few years ago, when the Observer's power went out and the backup power failed, the paper came out late. Most of our carriers work other jobs and they couldn't deliver the paper that day, so some of us volunteered to run the routes. I went out with our sports editor, Gary Schwab, to a couple of neighborhoods in University City. Gary rolled the papers, I drove, and along the way we met a bunch of people who cared deeply about the paper, the news, and the city. There are a lot worse ways to learn about a place than by delivering the paper every day.

The original Gangrey post has a few comments from writers who had paper routes. If any of y'all had routes, in Charlotte or elsewhere, I'd love to hear your stories.

One day, two worlds

We live in two worlds right now. The world of sunshine. The world of shade.

In the world of sunshine, it hit the mid-30s. In the world of shade, it felt like the teens.

In the world of sunshine, the ice and snow have melted away. In the world of shade, it's still thick and crusted.

In the world of sunshine, you can walk around in sneakers. In the world of shade, you need waterproof boots.

In the world of sunshine, you can take long strides. In the world of shade, every step is a nibble.

In the world of sunshine, your windshield just needs a quick brush. In the world of shade, it needs a scraper and two strong hands.

In the world of sunshine, you can hit the gas on the highway. In the world of shade, your car crawls down the side streets.

In the world of sunshine, fresh water drains down the gutters. In the world of shade, icicles hang from the eaves.

In the world of sunshine, tree branches sling snow like catapults. In the world of shade, limbs hang low and heavy.

In the world of sunshine, you can go with the light jacket. In the world of shade, you still need gloves.

In the world of sunshine, birds peck for fresh meals in the grass. In the world of shade, they huddle tight and live on yesterday's seed.

In the world of sunshine, it's Kodachrome. In the world of shade, it's monochrome.

In the world of sunshine, you hang around and talk to the neighbors. In the world of shade, you give a quick wave and duck inside.

In the world of sunshine, you stay out late. In the world of shade, you try to get home before dark.

In the world of sunshine, you think about baseball. In the world of shade, you think about luge.

In the world of sunshine, you hear dripping. In the world of shade, you hear crashing.

In the world of sunshine, the wind is brisk. In the world of shade, the wind is biting.

In the world of sunshine, there's a southern exposure. In the world of shade, there's a north face.

In the world of sunshine, you jog for exercise. In the world of shade, you might have to walk to work.

In the world of sunshine, it's time to fertilize the daffodils. In the world of shade, it's time to de-ice the sidewalk.

In the world of sunshine, skateboards. In the world of shade, skates.

Six months from now, the sun will beat us down and the shade will be our rescue. But we're used to that. Snow days like this are still rare enough to be special.

And now, as it thaws, you can witness how the world can change in just a few steps. Warm's not far from cold. Light's right next to dark. And the balance shifts and swirls, every day, every moment, as we spin around in space.

A nanny, a photog, a genius

This story was bouncing around Facebook last night... It originally aired a couple of weeks ago on WTTW-TV in Chicago. I watched it and can't stop thinking about it. Makes me wonder how much undiscovered brilliance is all around us.

Enjoy.

Let's hear your ice stories

Hey everybody, today we're looking to collect a bunch of stories about how people are dealing with the ice.

We're looking for neighborhood heroes, street scenes, any kind of little vignette that would help tell the story of this day.

You can drop the story in the comments to this post, email me at ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com, or call 704-358-5227. We might have some follow-up questions, so leave some way we can get in touch.

Thanks for the help. Stay safe and stay warm.

t.

A stroll in the snow

We wake up to a changed world. Then we go outside and walk in it.

Here's the old Christmas tree, lying at the curb, redecorated in white.

Here's a set of fresh animal tracks, a pair of little feet side by side, something with a hop instead of a stride.

Here's the neighbor's toddler, bundled up and waddling down the driveway. You wonder if she'll remember.

Here's the old snow shovel, up from the basement, brought out of retirement.

Here's a woman in her yard, measuring with a T-square. "It says 2 (inches)," she says, "but I think it's wrong. I think it must be 12."

Here's a giant magnolia, wide green leaves cupping the snow like a handful of sugar.

Here's a single woodpecker, thock-thocking at a tree, echoing in the soft silence.

Here's a streetlight, lit up, confused.

Here's the dog, having the best day ever, prancing down the street, plowing his nose into the drifts, panting and pulling and chasing down every stray scent with jets of steam coming from his mouth.

Here's our boots, every step scrunching in the powder, and all of a sudden here's a memory of flip-flops in the white Gulf sand down at Panama City Beach.

Here's a flock of birds, holed up in a tree, sending out sentries to bring back a weather report.

Here's a woman on a bike, eyes lit like stars, wishing us good morning and leaving a wobbly track down the sidewalk.

Here's the snow itself, the drifts flat as a tabletop on unbroken front lawns, the clumps plunging from branches like cliff divers, the flakes brushing your jacket with a soft psssh like a lover's lips.

Here's gray slush going down the storm drain, a reminder that all things must pass.

And here's a statue in a front yard, a concrete goddess holding up one of those shiny gazing balls, glowing blue and gold. The gazing ball is covered with snow, and so is the fence, and so are the roofs of the houses and the tops of the trees and everything we can see.

Here's an amazing day, a world changed overnight, a moment that whispers: Look at this.

---------------

Photo by Alix Felsing

My talk with Jerry Richardson

Jerry Richardson called Thursday to apologize.

“It was not my intention to be rude, or disrespectful, or not answer questions,” he said.

He was referring to his uncomfortable-to-watch news conference back on Tuesday. But the Panthers’ owner ended up talking about a lot more – including a new direction for the team, and how he plans to reach out more to fans.

I had a column in Thursday’s paper saying that in the news conference, Richardson came off as “irritable, cheap, confused, obstinate and a bit of a bully.” He called to respond. He wasn’t mad. We ended up talking three separate times – he had to hang up twice to take calls from other NFL owners (Jerry Jones in Dallas and Robert Kraft in New England).

All of this happened a couple hours before Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck – the Panthers’ likely choice with the no. 1 pick in the draft – announced he’s staying in school. I’m not sure Richardson would’ve been so calm then.

He’s planning to change the Panthers’ philosophy. For years the team leaned on a tough defense. But now he says the NFL is so offense-oriented that offensive coordinators and quarterback coaches are nearly as important as head coaches. Richardson said the Panthers will hire a new head coach first, but then go hard at offensive assistants. And no matter the coaches, he says the Panthers are going to open up.

“The NFL has changed, in the last five years, dramatically,” he said. “We would be foolish not to stay in sync with that… We didn’t score enough points. First thing, they (fans) want us to win. But after that, they want us to score points and they want excitement.”

I asked Richardson if he heard from fans after the news conference. This was his answer: “I had 11 e-mails this morning, and 10 were glowing.”

(Clearly his e-mail address is not well-publicized. Either that or he’s got an extremely effective Glow Filter.)

He said he understands fans are frustrated with the Panthers’ 2-14 season: “When they drive up here from Wilmington and Georgetown and Myrtle Beach (and the Panthers lose), that’s a long ride home.”

But he also said fans should take a longer view.

“We’ve only been in (the NFL) a short while,” he said. “We haven’t been in the league 75 years like the Pittsburgh Steelers. Our fan base is young. They don’t know the up-and-down cycles.”

Fans also complained about ticket prices. The Panthers won’t raise prices next season, but last season prices went up between $1 and $9 per seat. It was the team’s eighth price hike in 11 years.

“They’re ticked off about the ticket price,” Richardson said. “The ticket price increase was so modest, it surprised me.”

I mentioned in the column Thursday that we get our hair cut at the same place. Richardson compared the ticket hike to the hairspray he buys when he gets his trim. For years it was $10 a can. Now it’s $12. He doesn’t like it, but he understands the cost of business.

Two years ago, in a business decision, Richardson fired his sons, Jon and Mark. I asked him about that as part of a question about general turnover with the Panthers.

“Sometimes it’s difficult for families to operate well in business together,” he said. “I have other partners. I can’t run the business the way I’d run it if it was a father-and-son business.”

Richardson said that, despite last season, he thinks the Panthers are in “an exceptional place.” He listed a dozen of the Panthers’ “good young players,” and said other teams constantly call him trying to get them in trades. He’s got the first pick in the draft (even if it’s not Andrew Luck). He’s got a new head coach coming. And he says he’s got a lot of energy, despite a heart transplant not quite two years ago.

He sounded a lot sharper on the telephone than he did on the microphone a couple days ago. He also sounded sincere in his apology – although it’s clearly a smart thing to do when your image takes a hit.

At the end, we were talking about communicating with fans, and he asked me for suggestions. I didn’t have anything brilliant, but I said it might be good to have a news conference more often than every nine years.

He says it’s not his style to step out in public, but he knows he needs to let fans know what he’s thinking and what the team is up to.

We talked about being a sports fan, and how upset you get when your team’s going bad.

“That’s good!” he said – the point being, at least they care. And then he added this:

“I can tell you… I will care.”

The Big Cat, acting small

(Hey everybody, I know I'm a little late on this... you can see other smart comments on this from Cedar Posts, The Meck Deck, and our Rick Bonnell.)

In 1993, on the day NFL owners voted to bring the Carolina Panthers into the league, Jerry Richardson stood on the stage in Chicago and looked for a camera from back home.

The man who worked so hard to get the team here stared straight into the lens said he had a message for the fans: “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Now it sounds like he has a couple other words in mind.

The Panthers’ owner had a news conference Tuesday – his first in nine years – where he simultaneously came off as irritable, cheap, confused, obstinate and a bit of a creep.

Here’s part of his opening statement. Take a deep breath before you dive in.

“I think if we think about a number of things, and we look back over time – and time for me is a long time – I guess I would want to start by saying that, I think it was the Meineke Bowl that we went to… What’s your name? Young lady. Nicole? Who are you with? OK. Welcome, Nicole, I don’t know you. In fact, I don’t know a lot of people. It has been awhile since I’ve been here.”

It didn’t improve after that.

He directed Fox reporter Morgan Fogarty – who happens to be blond and beautiful – to come sit right in front of him. He batted away legitimate questions like blowflies.

But those are misdemeanors. The bigger problem is that what he said about his team made no sense.

Try to square these ideas:

1. Richardson said it was a positive that the Panthers let go several key veterans, because young players need to be on the field.

2. He said he knew John Fox preferred to play veterans.

3. He kept Fox as coach anyway.

The only logical explanation is financial. The Panthers saved money on players this season and might save money on coaches next season, especially if there’s a players’ strike or lockout. (Richardson is one of the key owners in those negotiations.)

Sometimes it does make sense to start over. Nobody expected the Panthers to go 2-14, but it’s clear that the team hit some version of the reset button. Then why not fire a coach who didn’t want to start over? Because he was still under contract, and you’d have to pay the old coach and the new one.

Other owners, in all sports, have been willing to take that hit to get better. Richardson wasn’t.

Look, I admire Jerry Richardson. He made himself a rich man, then willed the Panthers into existence when few others believed. We get our hair cut at the same place. It’s not a fancy place. We’ve crossed paths a couple of times, and he’s always been nice.

But he’s not the only one with a stake in the Panthers.

Part of the reason this team is here is because tens of thousands of fans bought personal seat licenses, giving the Panthers millions in upfront money before they ever sold a ticket. That’s a risky investment. The deal with sports is that you never know what value you’re going to get. You pay the same whether your team wins by three or loses by 30.

As a fan, in the end, you can ask only a couple of things of your team. They ought to do their best. And they need to have some kind of plan.

I don’t think Richardson did his best for the Panthers this year. And after watching him, it’s still not clear if he has much of a plan -- or much concern for what anybody else thinks.

Richardson had a heart transplant not quite two years ago. Nobody should expect him to be the same man he was on that great day back in 1993. But back then, he acted like we were in this together.

On Tuesday, he acted like we all work for him.

47

Today's my 47th birthday. Isaac Newton was born on Jan. 4, and so was Louis Braille. It's a good birthday for music -- R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, and Deana "Strawberry Wine" Carter, and the great soul singer Arthur Conley, who was born in McIntosh County, Ga., one county north of where I grew up.



A couple of years ago I wrote about turning 45 -- to me, that was the year I figured I was at least halfway done with this long and winding road. I've promised myself again to lose weight and get in shape -- I have a lot more I want to say about that later on, once I've had a little streak of success. Like everyone else, I see lots of flaws in myself that I'd like to correct on this trip around the sun.

But really, what I'd like to do this year is fail more.

The other day I was listening to an NPR show on video games. They were talking about the lessons that games teach us, and one of those lessons is how to fail. In any new game you might die 100 times before you reach the next level, but every time you learn a little more about the game, and you adapt, and finally you break through. Failure is a natural byproduct of trying something hard.

This year I plan to try harder things, and fail at them, until I don't.

So, right in the middle of writing all this, my friend Joe called with birthday wishes, and we started talking about what years are the BEST birthdays.

Ages 1-3: Meh. You don't really know what's going on.

4-5: It's mostly about cake.

6-10: The prime birthday years. As Joe said, when you're a little kid your birthday is better than Christmas because it's ALL ABOUT YOU -- all the presents are for you, and maybe your friends come over, and you get the biggest slice of cake. We decided that 9 is the prime birthday age -- old enough to enjoy everything, young enough to not be cynical about it.

11-15: Not that big a deal. You probably just want to stay in your room.

16: BIG deal. Drivin' time.

18: You can't drink at 18 anymore (at least in most states). But you can vote, and you're probably getting out of high school and starting the next part of your life. Big year.

21: You can drink legally now. At which point, for most of us, drinking becomes not as much fun.

25: Joe thought 25 was a big year -- he felt grown up then. I was 25 when I came to the Observer, and still felt like a kid in a lot of ways.

29: This was the year I became an adult -- came to the Observer's main office, moved to Charlotte, survived throat cancer.

30, 40, 50, 60: Taking-stock years.

65: Retirement (maybe).

75: For some people, this is when birthdays start to get exciting again. At some point, maybe you start to feel like you're stealing years: Ha! Made it to 82! Bite me, Grim Reaper!

The terrifying, and wonderful, thing is that none of us know until we get there.

Today I'm 47. Some days I feel a lot older, and some days I feel like a little kid. Time bends and stretches, sometimes by our own hands, sometimes by hands we never see.

My Favorite Things of 2010

So here's the stuff I liked the most this year. I wanted a little more than a top-10 list -- I had 20 things on here at one point -- but I settled on 11, because 11 is my favorite number, beautiful and symmetrical. Also, of course, 11 is one louder.

You have your own favorite things of the year, right? Drop 'em in the comments.

11. Hungover Owls (Warning: foul language. Also: fowl language.)

It turns out that owls, when you take their picture in the daytime, all look like they're coming off a three-day bender in Vegas. The photos are spectacular. The captions are almost as good. It's one joke, but the joke never gets old.

(Honorable mention: Kim Jong-Il Looking at Things.)

10. "Toy Story 3"



How good is Pixar? This ranks fourth on my list of favorite Pixar movies -- behind "Wall-E," "The Incredibles" and "Up" -- but it probably also makes my list of the top 50 movies of all time. This kids' movie about a bunch of talking toys ends up really being about life, loss, sacrifice, and the pain and joy of growing up. You forget about the skill of the technology because you're so caught up in the story.

9. Super Bowl 44

We watched this year's Super Bowl with a couple of lifelong New Orleans Saints fans. Being a Saints fan has meant the occasional island of hope surrounded by swamps of misery. When you compare histories, Panthers fans have lived like kings compared to Saints fans. Not to mention that Katrina almost destroyed the Superdome and left fans wondering if the team would ever come back.

But last year the Saints had their best team ever, and they made to the Super Bowl for the first time, against Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. The Saints sprung an onside kick to start the second half, and led by a touchdown late, but the Colts got the ball and started driving. You could almost feel all that history rising up like a raw tide, waiting to drown the Saints one more time.

And then this happened.



I wish I could replicate the sound in our friend Greg's living room right at that moment, as he and his buddies all of a sudden realized that this time fate broke their way, and the freaking New Orleans Saints -- the Saints! -- were about to be world champions.

That sound still rolls around in my bones.

8. Richard Thompson / Loudon Wainwright III (Knight Theater, April 19)

Two of the best singer-songwriters on the planet, in a beautiful new theater with a top-shelf sound system. I saw some other fine shows this year -- Drive-By Truckers, John Hiatt, Marshall Crenshaw -- but this show reminded me why live music moves me more than any other art. And Thompson played "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," maybe the greatest story song of the last 30 years.

(I wrote a longer review of the show over on my personal site.)

7. "Next," James Hynes

I can't remember how I heard about this novel -- a review in Entertainment Weekly, maybe? -- but I picked it up and read it in two long nights. An academic type flies to Texas for a job interview, but becomes obsessed with the beautiful woman next to him on the plane. He follows her around Austin. He remembers old girlfriends. And while all this is happening, something else is happening, just at the edge of the frame.

I won't spoil it any more than that, except to say that once you figure out what's going on, and you ask yourself Is this what I think it is?, you're already hurtling toward the finish, and one of the best last lines you'll ever read.

6. "Oceans"



Nature films have to do one of two things: Tell a compelling story (as in "March of the Penguins"), or show me something I've never seen before. "Oceans" showed me so many things I'd never seen, it was like looking at the sea for the first time. We saw this on a weeknight, and there weren't 10 people in the whole theater, but you could hear all of us gasping, over and over, at the beauty and drama. The scene with the circling dolphins and dive-bombing birds alone is worth the DVD rental. See this with the family, on a hi-def TV, and prepare to be awed.

5. "The House That Built Me," Miranda Lambert
Country radio was better than any other radio this year, and this was the best song on country radio. (Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" is almost as good -- if Fleetwood Mac made a country album, this would be the first single, even though the melody cribs from the Alan Parsons Project.)

"House That Built Me" has got all the pieces: A beautiful lyric built around a play on words, a simple and powerful story, a singer who knows that sometimes pulling back is better. I can hang in there pretty well through most of it, but my bottom lip starts to quiver on the bridge:

You leave home, you move on / And you do the best you can / I got lost in this old world /And forgot who I am...

Sing it, Miranda.



4. "Lonely, stressed and frustrated: Inside the mind of the Pinellas monkey," Michael Kruse (St. Petersburg Times, May 16)

I did a post a couple of weeks ago listing my five favorite stories of the year, but I saved this one for this list, because it stuck with me in a different way. It's not the writing that moves me so much (although the writing is fine). It's the thought behind the writing, and the feeling behind the thought.

A young rhesus macaque monkey has been on the loose in the Tampa-St. Pete area for the better part of two years now. On one level, it's fun -- the monkey has a Web page, and apparently it's now running for mayor of Tampa. But Kruse gets to the universal truth of the monkey on the loose: He's lonely, and we're not meant to be lonely. That idea, and this story, is going to stay with me a long time.

3. The sports-bar videos on Landon Donovan's goal

All of us -- OK, nearly all of us -- fell in love with soccer a little this summer when Landon Donovan netted a last-minute goal to beat Algeria in the World Cup. Just as a sports moment, it was brilliant enough -- goalie Tim Howard's outlet pass, Donovan's shot off a rebound, the USA dogpile in the corner. If you like sports at all, you have to enjoy this.



But in some ways that wasn't the best part. Later that day and into the night, videos started popping up on YouTube of fans reacting to the goal in sports bars around the country. In most of the videos you can't see the TV; you just see the fans going wide-eyed as the USA races down the field, then the agony as the first shot misses, then the screams as Donovan's follow goes in. I posted some of the videos back then, and I'm sure there are plenty more by now. As a sports fan there's no better moment: Your team does something amazing and wonderful, and you're right in the middle of a bunch of people who feel the same way.

Go watch them all, really, but for now, here's Seattle:



2. "(Bleep) You," Cee-Lo Green (WARNING WARNING PROFANITY ALERT... I'll just link this one instead of embedding)

This is the first song in years that made me feel like when I was 12, and a GREAT new song came on the radio, and I would beg my mama to take me to J.M. Fields the next day so I could buy the 45 because even when the radio played it every hour, that wasn't enough. At one point early on the video hit 2 million views on YouTube, and I'm pretty sure that 1.8 million were just me and my friend Joe Posnanski.

You can knock the language, I guess (and there's a clean version if you can't get past the bad words). But this song is so funny, so sweet, so full of joy -- from the guitar lick to the background Ooo-ooo-ooos to that amazing high note Cee-Lo hits coming out of the bridge -- that every time I play it, it makes me laugh, and dance, and try to hit that high note. And when it's done I play it over again.

1. The last shot in Butler-Duke

Sports highlights tend to land in two categories: A brilliant success, or a miserable failure. What you don't see much, as highlights linger over the years, is the near-miss. But the near-miss is the most human thing in sports. All of us have so many moments when we try hard, give our best, but don't quite get there. Those moments stick in our personal highlight reels. Sometimes I think our lives play out based on our near-misses, and what we decided to make of them.

This was one of the best sports years I can remember, from the Super Bowl, to Landon Donovan's goal, to Zenyatta flying from the back of the pack, to the John Isner-Nicolas Mahut ultramarathon at Wimbledon. But the best moment for me was the last 3.6 seconds of the last game of the college basketball season.

Duke -- the best college program of the last 20 years -- played Butler in the final. Butler is a small school from Indianapolis that has beaten some good teams over the past few years, but never got close to a title. But this time they made it to the Final Four (which also happened to be in Indianapolis), then beat Michigan State to make the title game, then played Duke close all the way to the end.

With 3.6 seconds left, and Duke up one, Duke's Brian Zoubek made one free throw but deliberately missed the second, so Butler would have to eat up time to take a shot. Butler's star player, Gordon Heyward, grabbed the rebound. Four dribbles and three seconds later he was at halfcourt. And then he let the shot go.

You can see the CBS broadcast of the last two minutes -- the whole thing is great drama, but you can skip ahead to about 5:00 if you want to see those last few seconds. But somehow a fan video, even though it's blurry and shaky, is what touches me the most.



ESPN did a scientific study of the shot a few days after the game, calculating the angle of release and the speed of the ball, and if I remember right, three inches to the left and it would have gone in. Because of the two teams, and because of the moment, it clearly would've been the greatest shot in basketball history, and probably one of the all-time sports highlights.

Three inches away.

But I've noticed something. They're playing the highlight anyway. I've seen it at least two dozen times in this new basketball season, and when March Madness comes back around we'll see it a lot more. I think we're going to end up holding onto that 3.6 seconds for years and years, because what we saw there was the greatest near-miss in sports history.

Not all of us get to raise the trophy. But all of us have a time when we just missed. Those last few seconds of Butler-Duke were some of the most human moments of 2010. And when I'm too old to remember who won the Super Bowl this year, or what books I loved, I think I'm going to remember that last shot.

Coming to Terms, Ornamentation, and you

Just a quick note to remind y'all about a couple of reader projects I'll be wrapping up this week:

-- For Ornamentation, I'm looking for stories about an object that resonates with you at the holidays. The deadline on this one is Tuesday night.

-- For Coming To Terms, I'm looking for stories from those of you who have lost your job recently... I'm interested in whether you've taken the moment to think about the things you've always dreamed of doing. The deadline on this one is Thursday night.

(This project is linked my story "The Accountant's Song," which ran online and in the paper Saturday.)

We've already got some great stories for these projects but I'm always looking for more. Please add yours.

Project #9: Coming to Terms

Today I've got a story about Cindy Thomson, who got laid off at age 62 and decided to pursue her dream -- becoming a jazz singer.

In some ways, Cindy is lucky. She didn't have quite the same financial pressures as other people who have lost their jobs in this economy. She has a spouse who works. She was able to borrow money from her mother to cut a CD.

But what drew me to her story was the choice she faced, the same choice so many others have faced over these past few years: You've lost your job. Now what do you do with your life?

That's the idea behind my latest reader project, Coming to Terms.

I want to hear from those of you who have lost your job in the past couple of years. Have you been able to find work again? Is it the kind of work you hoped for? Do you dream of doing something else with your life? Have you ever reached out and tried to do it?

Tell your stories in the comments below, or e-mail them to me at ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com. If pictures or video help tell your story, send those along, too.

The Friday Wrap

First of all, thanks to everyone who sent kind words on my column in today's paper about the young couple in love. Go down in the comments and you'll find a lot of people predicting that the marriage won't last. Maybe so. But I also heard from the other side... here's an e-mail from a reader named Carolyn:

When my future husband and I began dating, I was a senior at Carolina. He graduated three years earlier, through the Navy ROTC program, and lived in Pensacola. We dated for two years, while he was in Pensacola, in Washington State, and during an 8-month overseas deployment. He was overseas for our entire engagement, returning just in time for our rehearsal and wedding. During the two years we dated and were engaged, we’d guess we spent about a month and a half together, in total. It was mentioned more than once by well-meaning relatives that we barely knew each other when we married.

Our wedding was twenty years ago this past October. We have two beautiful little boys and have built a wonderful life together. You have to make it work, but it can, and it does – we’re living proof.

"You have to make it work." True of every marriage, no?

On to the wrapup:

On the blog and in the paper

We started a new reader project. There's still time to tell your story -- I'll put together the stories early next week sometime.

They played bagpipes for the copy desk.

Links from Twitter

Here's some stuff I flagged on my Twitter feed, @tommytomlinson:

I haven't had a chance to see any of "The Sing-Off." But this is just great. http://bit.ly/feQo84

Want to know how to be a writer? This interview with the great @MySecondEmpire (a/k/a Esquire's Chris Jones) tells you about all you need. http://www.rrj.ca/m11742/

My bud @jposnanski on Bob Feller, and believing. http://bit.ly/ghcq3T

I'd love to know what Michael and Dean said to each other on this little walk. http://on.nba.com/h5YYhc

Mama says it's a rainy night in Georgia. Just so happens I've been listening to this a lot lately. http://bit.ly/gfnQUe

Coming up

My story on the woman who got laid off and decided to become a singer is running... sometime soon. I'll also have a piece wrapping up all our Gift of Giving stories from the past few weeks. And on Tuesday (I think) I'll be unveiling my picks for the Best Stuff of 2010. Be thinking of yours, for the comments.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Bagpipes for the copy desk

(A quick reminder: Take a minute to contribute to my latest reader project, Ornamentation. And there's a new poll over to the right... pick your most annoying person of 2010. Probably should've been a longer list.)

Copy editors are the umpires of the newsroom -- they've done a great job if you barely notice they've been there.

Most everything that goes into our paper is edited at least twice. The first editor is what we call a "line" editor -- usually the reporter's boss. The second layer is the copy editor. The copy editor usually writes the headline, and always does the fine-tooth-comb editing to make sure street names are spelled right, dates match up, we're not saying DUI when we mean DWI. Copy editors know more about the city, state, region and world than anyone else in the newsroom. Copy editors have saved me so many times I lost count long ago. All reporters make mistakes -- it's inevitable on a constant deadline -- but a good copy editor is an All-Star catcher, snagging every wild pitch.

See, that's two baseball metaphors already. A copy editor would say we should cut it to one.

I say all this to set up this video from the Winston-Salem Journal. As newsrooms (like a lot of other businesses) have cut staff, copy editors at many papers -- including the Observer -- have taken the hardest hit. (Full disclosure: My wife works on our copy desk, which we call the universal desk -- our folks also design and lay out pages.)

Last Friday was to be the last day of work for the 18 people on the Journal's copy desk. So they brought in the funeral pipes.



As you see from the video, the reality in Winston-Salem turned out to be more complicated. The reality is complicated these days for every newspaper -- and every other business trying to survive and thrive in these strange times. That's not news anymore, I guess.

Mainly I just wanted to let you know about the greatness of copy editors. We don't notice them much. They deserve to be noticed.

Project #8: Ornamentation

This week's reader project -- called Ornamentation -- is simple. Maybe, as you and your family have built up holiday traditions over the years, some object from those traditions has built up a special meaning.

It might be a Christmas ornament, but it doesn't have to be. I find myself thinking of my dad's old pocketknife, and how he'd get it out to cut open the tape on his presents so we could use the boxes over again.

Whatever it is, I'd like you to tell the story of that one special object that you think of at the holidays.

If you have a photo that helps the story, even better.

Send whatever you've got to ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com, or you can just tell your story in the comments.

The Friday Wrap

It was a busy week around here... put a lot of words through the old paragraph factory (although you won't see all of them until this weekend). Here's what I've been up to:

On the blog and in the paper

There's still a couple of days to take the poll there to the right... looks like the top three choices for Movie of the Year are "Inception," "Toy Story 3" and Other.

I came up with a reader project on the Panthers that turned out to be a total dud (not unlike the Panthers, I guess). Didn't get a single question, and you can see in the comments that several readers weren't fond of the whole idea. That happens sometimes! Failure is good! And either way, I'm glad to see Jerry Richardson speak to fans, at least a little.

Louis C.K. brought the funny.

Elizabeth Edwards led a fascinating life. (Note the anonymous comment at 7:35 a.m., and the discussion that followed... we deal with sketchy comments all the time, and I've always felt the best way to deal with it is to let commenters police themselves.)

I picked my reads of the year.

What's the deal with that photo? Y'all had some ideas.

Links from Twitter

Here's some stuff I flagged on my Twitter feed, @tommytomlinson:

Via many others: Unbelievably powerful WashPost story, told through Facebook updates. http://wapo.st/eOCLnm

This story has pretty much everything: Meth, a GED, mac and cheese. http://bit.ly/dMHMIt (via @MeckDeck)

Casting call in CLT for pilot of possible Showtime series starring Claire Danes. http://bit.ly/fhKkpb via @AddThis

Your thoughts to the Queen. Aretha reportedly has pancreatic cancer. http://bit.ly/emNOB9 (via @editormarilyn)

Sarah Palin, a fake hunter? Say it ain't so! http://bit.ly/gX9Moo

The great @gangrey comes through again: Jimmy Breslin on John Lennon. http://bit.ly/h2v4ej

Yep, Urban's gone. Wow. http://bit.ly/hbvsL8 #Florida #SEC

The great @edsbs (a Gator fan) has the proper, measured response: http://sbn.to/dRKYpO

Mr. @BenFolds said this was great stuff from the "Sing-Off." Always listen to Mr. @BenFolds. http://bit.ly/fjvkKS

Zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning. @CKlosterman. http://nyti.ms/gI8Dpy

Coming up

Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll have a story in the paper on Sunday about a woman who got laid off and decided to chase her dream. It'll have a reader project attached to it so some of you can tell your own stories. Holler and let me know what you think. UPDATE: I should always wait until the Friday-afternoon meeting to post this thing. The story's holding, probably until next Sunday. I'm hoping it'll age like a fine wine, as opposed to, you know, skim milk or something.

Other stuff in the pipeline: A Christmas story from the vault, maybe something on Billy Graham, and my favorite stuff of the year. That started out as a top-10 list, but now I'm thinking it's going to be a top-20. It's been an interesting year.

Photo in need of a story

I took this photo at the Plaza-Midwood post office.

What's going on here? I have no idea. That's your job. Write a little story to go with this photo and drop it in the comments.