Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/582418
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS BecauseIammyownbiggest fan, I usually read every word in my column—sometimes several times over. I am likely the only reader who noticed, but a column or two back Mr. Big Deal Editor omitted an important part of the biographical tag line that appears at the bottom of my col- umn. He left out that I am "a champion of the State Theatre and an exceptional athlete." While I suspect the above ten words were omitted in order to make the column fit my allot- ted word allocation, it seems to me that I should be consulted prior to deciding which signif- icant accomplishments should be wiped from my remarkable resume. Next thing you know, he'll want to take a look at what I am planning to say on my tombstone. I feel strongly about my first amendment rights, and will not be silenced. Unless Editor Thompson pledges to cease and desist with his blatant censor- ship of my tag line, this may be my last column you will ever read. But before I go, I feel the need to tell you just exactly what an exceptional athlete I was, and still am today. •••• I played little league base- ball—but so, too, have friends and acquaintances who have no idea whether they are left- or right-handed; and who even to- day are physically unable to tie their shoes. What distinguishes me from such mediocre ath- letes is that I went on to excel in high school. A crafty little left- handed pitcher, I was almost unhittable; in fact I did once throw a no hitter against arch rival Shasta High School. Bet- ter than that, I married the cut- est girl in the 1963 Shasta High graduating class. After high school I pitched for the local American Legion team, and later the semi-pro Te- hama County Bluffers. I remem- ber pitching a game in Red- ding's Tiger Field with at least a dozen professional scouts in the stands. After winning the game 1-0, I assumed I would be be- sieged with offers to play pro- fessional baseball. I was admit- tedly disappointed when I re- alized that they were actually there to see the losing pitcher, a Central Valley High School graduate by the name of John Strohmayer, who went on to pitch for the major league Mon- treal Expos. After college I hung up my baseball cleats in favor of fast pitch softball. For a dozen years or so I played 50-60 games a year for great sponsors such as Hi-Sierra Nursery, Wheeler Logging, Brainerd's, and Roy C. Ford. With teammates Greg Hassey, Bill Spaletta, Roman Gonczeruk, George Moran, John Jennings, Jerry Stannard, Charlie Smith, Joe Brown, An- thony Flores, Greg Russell, Gary Burton, Bert Verdugo and Bob- bie Nott, we collected league and tournament championships on a regular basis during the decade of the '70s. Damn, we were good. •••• As one might imagine, I ex- celled in other sports as well. I played junior varsity basketball at Red Bluff High, but because I was small I failed to crack the starting line-up. Disappointed but undeterred, the next dozen years or so were spent honing my skills in basketball. I remember playing basket- ball at Lincoln Street School un- til well after midnight, lighting the court with headlights of a car which was left running for hours at a time. I remember the dozens of times that Larry Jantzen and I climbed to the roof of the old boys' gym at Red Bluff High. We would pry open a window and leap down to the bracing hold- ing the backboard, and before long we would be playing for hours at a time with other gym rats like Ted Morgan and Bobby Morehouse. I remember almost flunking out of Shasta College because I spent more time in the gym than I did the classroom. Fortunately I also remember setting the single-game Church League scoring record at 42 points against the Tom Tipton and Bruce Briggs led Presbyte- rian Church; and I remember playing for Hi-Sierra along with Larry Jantzen, Donny Martin, Fred and Doug Dreier, Steve Paulissen and Jim Noll, go- ing undefeated in both the Red Bluff and Redding city league. I remember being selected as the MVP of the highly respected 3 on 3 intramural basketball tournament while attending Chico State. Damn, I was good. •••• I was a member of two un- defeated Red Bluff High foot- ball teams… sort of. I was quar- terback on the Spartan fresh- man football team in 1959. In those days freshman, JV and Varsity teams were enrolled in the same PE class. With foot- ball stars like John MacDonald, Rich Moore, Gregg Avilla, Da- vid Minch, Clyde Bosworth and Fred Richelieu, the varsity en- joyed an undefeated season. I did my part by allowing several of these guys to stuff me in lock- ers and trash cans on a regu- lar basis. I was actually the second- string quarterback on a team which in my senior year was un- defeated. The first-string quar- terback was friend and class- mate Bob Grim, who attended Oregon State on scholarship and later became an all-pro wide receiver for the Minne- sota Vikings. My football career consisted of exactly three plays against Shasta High. Did I tell you I married the cutest girl at Shasta High? To be honest, football was not my best sport. Enter- ing high school, I weighed 87 pounds, was slow of foot and weaker than most girls in my class. I remember running up the field with my helmet bounc- ing around until I was looking out the ear hole. After my fresh- man year, football season found me on the rooter's bus with the cheerleaders, where I belonged. •••• Was I an exceptional athlete? Probably not, but it is sort of like when one looks in the mir- ror. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and damn, I am one handsome man. •••• Coming State Theatre at- tractions: Oct. 9, Maker Space Film Festival; Oct. 10, bluegrass band Reckoning and Wake of the Dead, performing Grateful Dead tributes. BillCorneliusisalifelong resident of Red Bluff, a retired Chief Probation Officer, a champion of the State Theatre and an exceptional athlete. He can be reached at bill. cornelius@sbcglobal.net. William Tells Theexploitsof an exceptional athlete Cartoonist's take "I'm fed up with politics and the country is going down the drain." "Ah, yes, you speak of a re- cent Bloomberg Politics poll that found, according to AP, that 75 percent of Americans are fed up with politics and 72 percent think their country isn't as great as it once was. No won- der more than a third of Amer- icans prefer a presidential can- didate without experience in public office." "Hey, Donald Trump may be a braggart and a loudmouth, but there's a reason he's striking a chord. He's telling the truth about the mess the country is in. He appears to be genuine about his desire to fix it. And unlike our political class, which is ig- noring our debt, deficit, messy tax system and a million other issues, he sounds like a guy who will actually do something." "Your frustration is under- standable. Americans on both sides of the political aisle are fed up with politics as usual. Republicans are favoring Trump and Ben Carson with Carly Fiorina coming in just be- hind Jeb Bush in the polls. Ber- nie Sanders, a self-identified so- cialist, continues to grow in the polls against Hillary Clinton. Americans sure are tired of the same old same old." "The experts tell us it is a bad idea to elect a president who has little or no political experience. When you look at the last six years under Presi- dent Obama, who had a paper- thin resume and never ran any large organization, they have a point. I thought he was going to bring people together and work across the political aisle to get things done?" "I forgot he made such prom- ises. Regrettably, our president is not a natural leader. At home, he has been unwilling or unable to engage the Congress and get things done. Abroad, his foreign policy is a mess. The Middle East is a runaway train. Vladi- mir Putin is cleaning Obama's clock." "Yeah, well, I'm still willing to risk putting Trump in the White House. No small number of thoughtful, intelligent Re- publicans agree with me — de- spite being mocked for our sup- port. Like him or hate him, he gets things done." "Your point is well taken. Ac- cording to Bloomberg, '37 per- cent of Americans say they're more drawn to a presidential candidate who is a government outsider but who has also been a leader, handled complex is- sues, and managed teams to get things done.' Roughly half of Republicans surveyed prefer outsider candidates." "Which is why Carly Fiorina is rising in the polls. She is one smart cookie and her no-non- sense answers during the last few debates resonate with me. Like Trump, she is worried that we're heading down the tubes and she wants to roll up her sleeves to turn the country around." "Her appeal makes sense when you consider that 66 per- cent of Americans think the na- tion is headed in the wrong di- rection. What's worse is that 47 percent think America is 'falling behind,' while 25 percent think the country is outright 'failing.'" "We are failing. Most peo- ple sense it. And like a third of those polled believe, moral de- cay and a lagging work ethic are driving our failure. The middle class is struggling to get ahead. And the well-to-do are increasing their wealth by big numbers as low interest rates fuel the stock market. I'd never vote for Bernie Sanders, but I can understand the appeal he has to some people as dispar- ities between the rich and the rest of us grow." "Well, at least there was one silver lining found in the Bloomberg poll." "What's that?" "Fifty-three percent of the re- spondents agree that, so far, the 2016 campaign has been enter- taining!" Tom Purcell, author of "Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood" and "Comical Sense: A Lone Humorist Takes on a World Gone Nutty!" is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Tom@ TomPurcell.com. Tom Purcell The political decline of American greatness I was admittedly disappointed when I realized that they were actually there to see the losing pitcher, a Central Valley High School graduate by the name of John Strohmayer, who went on to pitch for the major league Montreal Expos. StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 For- est Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@ senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558- 3160, governor@governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393- 0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, John Brewer, 824-7033 Your officials "Hey, Donald Trump may be a braggart and a loudmouth, but there's a reason he's striking a chord. He's telling the truth about the mess the country is in. ... unlike our political class, which is ignoring our debt, deficit, messy tax system and a million other issues, he sounds like a guy who will actually do something." "Your frustration is understandable. Americans on both sides of the political aisle are fed up with politics as usual. Republicans are favoring Trump and Ben Carson with Carly Fiorina coming in just behind Jeb Bush in the polls. ... Americans sure are tired of the same old same old." OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, October 7, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6