The Spanish royal Palace

 I’ve seen many royal palaces, stately homes, and castles, but none can hold a candle to the Spanish royal palace. This is a collection of art, objects, phenomenal decorations, and a chandelier collection second to none. We joked today that keeping them all clean would’ve been like painting the Golden Gate Bridge; once you finished, you get to start all over again.  The Royal Palace directly faces the Royal Cathedral.  It’s a face off between the earthly secular king  and the spiritual leader of Spain. This is a wildly popular tourist attraction.  It was crowded  with tours but still enjoyable.  

We are discovering the ‘senior rates are a drastic savings in the admission prices.  However,  you must present documentation that you’re OLD to get the reduced ticket.  

As with all these types of attractions, the pictures say it all.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/cDteRbATEJbqegy29 

Thinking About Prayer

 Today I'm thinking about and praying for the people who have prayed for me over the years.  During roughly 50 years of my life, I've had people actively praying for me.  Of course, my zany side immerged and I thought about ranking them from last to first - like a TV sports show with swirling, twirling lights and other graphical dodads.  And that brought to mind one of my mother's favorite bible verses - The last shall be first and the first shall be last. [Matthew 20:16.  This is part of the landowner parable.  The landowner pays all his workers equally whether they worked all day or just part of the day.]  It means that in God's kingdom (such a medieval reference!) the insignificant will be important in the eyes of God.  More importantly, heavenly systems are not like the earthly systems. 

I know.  I never write so directly about religion, but it is Lent, and my Lenten gift this year is to read a devotional every day and try to reflect on it.  Today's was about people who have prayed for you.  There have been so many.  It started when I was a child, and my mother's friends prayed for me whenever I was sick or in the hospital.  Some were Marthas and some were Marys.  [For the non-Christian, I'm talking about the parable where Martha does all the work required to have a bunch of people in her home for a dinner party and meeting.  Mary, her sister, sits at the feet of the teacher and listens to everything he has to say rather than helping Martha.  Martha is outraged when the teacher chides her for her jealousy and envy and refuses to instruct Mary to help her sister.]  You can interpret this parable in two ways - there's more than one way to serve God, and it's important to prioritize our time spent with God.

The point is there are many ways to pray.  I try to become friends with the people I meet who have certain types of auras - for want of a better word - .  Well, just like some folks are great at gardening or cooking or have a creative talent, some folks just seem to have a direct line to the spiritual.  It just sort of radiates out of them.  Now, selfishly, THOSE are the folks you want praying for you.  And, those folks are also people to be emulated.  It's kind of an impossible standard, but it is good to strive for. 

If you're saying at this point, "You're crazy; I don't see ANY auras."  Here's another approach - memorize the fruit of the spirit [ love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control]  If someone seems to embody these qualities effortlessly, that's someone you want to pray for you.  

As I became a parent, people prayed for me and my child.  I was never in a hospital waiting room or in as a patient alone.  That kind of prayer is a great comfort.  Plus, in times of stress I've never been shy about calling in the troops when I felt in need of prayer.  

If the shoe is on the other foot and I try to pray for someone, if I can't get started, I just turn to the Psalms and contemplate one.  It usually brings the comfort of knowing people are about the same - same types of troubles and upsets as modern people.  Endurance is all.  The idea of Leaning on the Lord is another good starter.  Worry is unfaithful is another good starter I use on myself.  

So, if you are so inclined....  think about prayer (or whatever spiritual quality makes sense to you).   

My prayer for you is you find a blessing during your day tomorrow.  Keep your self open to the possibility.    Amen, Over and Out.  Later.  YF.  Yeah, I should probably throw in a few emoji's here for fun 📿💗😇.  You can figure them out.

Texas Rangers: Spring Training, 2025

 Well, Texas Ranger fans, I've written a Spring Training Blog eleven times.  Basically, the same 59 people read it.  (Weird, huh?)  This year I've been hesitant to write about Spring Training because I'M NOT IN ARIZONA.  The first week of Spring Training I was positive I couldn't write about it.  We were only getting audio, and the 'starters' played about one nano-second followed by a stream of prospective wanna be's - some of which are legitimate, and others are ones invited to Major League Camp as a perk for a good performance at the lower levels of Minor League basement (High A, AA).  Triple AAA players are looked at hard - especially pitchers.  Non-pitchers at the Triple AAA level are invited to see if their ability to hit major league pitching has progressed to the point of being seriously considered.  

Each year, there is usually a 'break out' player.  In 2024, it was Wyatt Langford.   He's on track, again, to make the team.  The position player who has broken out this year is the Ranger's Minor League Player of the Year, 2024.  He was invited to the American League Fall Stars games.  He's Alejandro Osuna, a 22 year old RF who bats/throws left.  He has been tearing it up in Spring Training:  Translation - he's hitting major league pitching.  However, because he's so young, and our out field is overrun with seasoned players, he'll probably wind up in Triple AAA (a big promotion for him).  Still, he would be poised to jump up to the "Show" in the case of injury.

Last year was a huge disappointment.  It started with the starting pitching being decimated.  Then Josh Jung, star third basemen, broke his wrist. That opened the way for Josh Smith to become an everyday player and to blossom.  There's no way he can be kept out of the lineup this year after his amazing performance last year.  Semien (2nd base), Lowe (1st base - traded to the Nationals in the offseason), Heim (starting catcher), Garcia (right field) ALL HAD DISAPPOINTING SEASONS.  Only Seager did well, whenever he played.  He had surgery in the off season.  Evan Carter was hurt most of last season.  We were a dismal team.  Josh Smith was the only consistently competent batter last season.

We couldn't buy a seeing eye single.  We couldn't get the timely hit, especially with people on base.  Our one run games were underwater.  Our pitching consistently gave up runs in the first third of the game while we were blanked.  It was an exercise in frustration. 

THIS YEAR:  Starting rotation:  LaGrom (finally healthy, an "Ace" by any standard); Evoldi (healthy, and doing well in Spring Training); Mahle (concerned that his arm is still a bit iffy); Bradford (sore elbow - not going to be ready for Opening Day; Dunning (hopefully will return to his 2023 form); and Jon Gray should be the workhorse of the starters this year.  

Bradford's injury is setting up a ten day competition for his roster spot between Jack Leiter & Kumar Rocker.  Both are young.  Both are homegrown.  Both have great stuff.  Whoever wins this short term shorting job, will have a baptism by fire in the early season since neither one is truly a 'pitcher' yet.  Both should be starting in Triple AAA to get more command, and to learn how to be crafty and work out of trouble.

Our bullpen is the big question mark this year.  Kirby Yates, David Robertson, José Leclerc, Andrew Chafin, José Ureña, and Owen White were all traded/or left as free agents.   The bullpen is the weak link in this team.  There's no way to tell which of the dozen of so pitchers duking it out in Spring Training can produce during the year.  Joe Barlow is back.  If he can maintain his form of two years ago, he's the obvious closer, but every other relief position is up for grabs.  

Semian, Seager, Garcia, (oblique, but very mild); Langford (slightly worse oblique, but still mild), Carter, Taveras (stealing lots of bases) all look much better this Spring.  If most return to their 2023 form, the play-offs are certainly possible.  We have a great defensive team.  Joc Pederson was added as a professional DH - he's got a magnificent bat.  Jake Burger, also a veteran, takes over at first base - also a great bat.  Heim is going to platoon with the solid veteran catcher acquired from the Padres:  Kyle Higashioka.  Heim is hoping to recharge his bat in the 2025 season.

The core of this team won the 2023 World Series.  Chris Young (top dog in the front office) is all about building a team year after year which is competitive.  I think we are going to see a much better team than last year simply because of the starting pitching.  The defense is solid.  We need the timely hit.  We need the relief pitchers to hold the line.  Because the team is led by Semian, Seager and Garcia, all veterans who know how to win, I'm hopeful that their performances in Spring Training will help the team get off to a fast start.  It's going to be an interesting season.  My 'homer' prediction is 85-90 wins IF the pitching does its' job - both starters and relievers.  

GO, Rangers.  FYI:  Opening Day is March 27th, yes, it's early this year.  

It's Another New Year

         Another year bites the dust.  This is my 75^th year.  Hard to believe the earth has circled the sun 75 times, but, apparently, it has.  I always start contemplating the New Year on Christmas day because Christ’s (supposed) birth on December 25^th – arbitrary date which some scholars, but not all, associate with Saturnalia.  This was a Roman festival which ran for 23 days celebrating the agricultural bounty of the harvest just concluded.  It was also associated with the winter solstice.  People celebrated with wreaths, candles, good food and gift giving.  Sound familiar?  Christmas has always had this secular connection culminating in our 21^st century culture in “Santa”, or St. Nicolas, or Kris Kringle, or a myriad of other names Santa is known by around the world.    

          My point is I always start contemplating the new beginnings a New Year offers on Christmas Day.  I’ve been looking up quotations concerning the New Year, and my favorite is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote”  "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year". The quote continues, "He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety".  Isn’t that great?  It’s a reminder that worry is unfaithful.  

        The first person who said that to me was my friend, Frank Swenson.  I was fretting and stewing about EVERYTHING.  That was my mother’s specialty – think of everything that possibly could or would go wrong, and get PREPARED.  At the emotional level, she was very unhappy most of the time because she was so stressed trying to control everything.   However, she was ruthlessly organized and always prepared.  That mindset explains why.  One mantra I always use to help keep myself focused on what I can truly control is:  WORRY IS UNFAITHFUL. 

I always commit at the beginning of every year to find the bright side, silver lining, the ability to keep on no matter what, and to only solve the problem in front of me.  [I’m actually a little in love with Emerson.  I find his musings to be insightful, concise, and even two centuries later, to be understandable and relatable to 21^st century life.]

January 5th is an important day in the life of my family.  That day is part of my New Year's contemplations.  January 5, 2025 would have been my brother’s 72^nd birthday.  I know my nephew will be thinking of him today.  My best ‘Billy’ story happened before he used a single addictive substance:  He was in middle school.  As usual, he was large for his age, popular and could already tell spellbinding stories.  At 13 he was already a piped piper.  The story goes that he saw some bully beating up on some kid we would call a nerd today in the school hallway.  Billy pushed the bully off the kid at which point the bully decided to challenge Billy to a fight after school. 

Billy Sartor

Billy loved to fight.  His only concern was (1) his watch, which one of his minions happily held during the actual fight, and (2)  my Dad would find out he’d been fighting.  He proceeded to beat the bully into the ground.  I heard this story from two guys at Bill’s funeral who had known him since elementary school.  I suspect some version of this story is true because Billy (the boy) had a sense of fairness and what was ‘right’.  This is one of my favorite stories about my brother.  I always wonder who he might have become without his addictions changing him and his life. 

 

Wedding Day, January 5, 1946

Jo and Bill Sartor, 50+ years of marriage

Joan & William Sartor, January 5, 1946

 On a happier note, January 5^th is  also my parents’ wedding anniversary.  There was a huge storm with snow and ice the day of their wedding.  It was a small affair to start with – mostly family with a few friends in the West Tulsa local Methodist church with the punch and cake reception in the basement.  In 1946 there was no alcohol, a few presents, and life went on.  Mother and Dad went to their newly rented garage apartment pulled on a sled!  Mother was 20 and Dad was 22.  They met when she was a sophomore in high school.  They dated until Dad graduated in 1943.  He immediately went to the Army-Air Corps.  They decided not to marry because Mother was really too young, and Dad didn’t want to leave a widow behind and a possible child.  He expected to be killed because in 1943 the war still hung in the balance   Air-Corpsmen fighting from planes didn’t have an expectation of longevity.  They wrote letters throughout the war.  The day he returned to Tulsa, he appeared on Mother’s parents’ doorstep with a dozen red roses.  [This would have been the equivalent of a couple of hundred dollars in today’s money and an extravagant gift.]  I try to think of their feelings in that moment in time.

They loved each other for more than 60 years before she died.  My father adored her.  He was the passive partner in the relationship.  Mother always led everything.  I know they had a very active sex life.  I learned that by accident – my father in his dementia had zero filter after Mother passed.  She would have been horrified.

He always gave her special cards especially for their anniversary.  He would keep them in the glove box of his truck until the ‘day’.  I realized Dad was deep into dementia when Mother began recycling her ‘cards’ – she kept them – because Dad could no longer function enough to buy a new one.  There was rarely enough money for any type of gift on their anniversaries, but there was no doubt of their devotion.  It was a living marriage with ups, downs, and sideways happenings; it was always real and very satisfying to both partners.  Overall, it was an introduction to what a successful marriage actually looked like.  What a gift,

This day of the birthday and anniversary being on the same day is the time each year I contemplate my family and growing up.  I was very lucky to have such loving parents, but I was also a product of the double standards of the time period.  It took me a long time to gain self confidence, and become grounded in who I was.  I suspect that’s true of most of us.  

Finally, have a Happy New Year because each day of each year can be a blessing and a new beginning.