Picacho Peak (Arizona's answer to Angel's Landing)

We have driven by Picacho Peak hundreds of times. It's on the way to Tucson from Phoenix. It's also the site of a Civil War battle, for which they perform a re-enactment every year, guns and all. It shoots straight up out of the flat desert like a knuckle sandwich, taking you two thousand feet into the desert stratosphere.

Anna and I have tried to hike it twice already

. We failed the first time when I forgot

my wallet and a Ranger

would not let us

mail in a bill. "You really shouldn't be driving without your wallet anyway?" So us two patrons patronized back home to Tucson. The second time a killer storm was rolling across the desert in front of us as we stepped up to the trail. Today was different. Today was normal. With wallets in pockets and the best weather on earth (93 degrees without a cloud or breeze) we made the hike!

It's a hidden gem and well worth the time. If you ever visit we will take you, and it won't disappoint. Some hikes tend to bore or seem too long. Hunter Trail, built by the CCC in the 1930's is the perfect mix of length and variety. We heard and saw hawks, a pack of coyotes

making a kill, and lizards galore. And it was a heart-pumper. A real full-body workout that left both of us a little more than nervous. We finished the hike excited to do it again someday. And with

empty canteens and dusty shoes we walked into a near-by Dairy Queen for some dipped awesomeness.

ps- Don't be like us and scoff at the

Ranger when he says "two liters per person is a must."

Tomorrow's headline could have been: "Desert native and wife die of dehydration 2.1 miles from I-10 Interstate and local gas station."

No need to flirt with the Darwin awards.

A plug for Kobe

Sure I've got a big "to-do" list today and appointments at the hospital. Sure I'm off to a late start. But if I don't get my espn.com hit early, I begin getting nervous, shaky, and cranky. I limited myself to just a glance this morning and it made me pause in gratitude. On the front page was a picture of Kobe giving a high-five to Odom. He has a menacing stare, like an arrow bearing down on its target. And you see...passion. Passion! It seems in recent years NBA talk has dwindled down to:

"They are thugs, self-centered, and selfish."

"They don't care about winning, just the money."

"They don't play team ball."

But this morning that picture of Kobe took me back to 1992-1993, a year during one of the glory decades of the NBA. A year when every other house in Phoenix had a "Suns fan yes I am"

sign on their window and car. A year when passion dominated the game. A year when I cried after the Suns lost in triple overtime to Jordan's Bulls in the Finals. It was tragic. I still remember the feel of Grandpa and Grandma Budge's thick brown carpet as I rolled on the floor in agony. As a 10 year old I could feel and see the pain in Barkley, Majerle, Ainge, and Johnson's faces. I wanted to throw a dart at Pippen, Jordan, and Longley. Passion.

Kobe, this morning, you rock, and you are rocking more and more as the years go by.

Professional Running and a Beard

I'm sure you have heard the joke:

"What's the difference between a teacher and a pizza? Answer: The pizza can feed a family of four."

I like it, not only because it's almost true, but I can apply it to a lot of things I spend my time doing. Consider my running. I've logged thousands of miles. I've worn out pairs of shoes. And I've raced in probably fifty races by now. And the difference between me as a runner and a pizza is...? You guessed it. I couldn't sustain Ghandi with what I make as a runner. I could put a shirt on his back, but that's about it.

Except for last night. I won forty bucks in prize money at the Sabino Canyon sunset race for finishing first in my age group and fifth overall! Yes, I brag. And if you ever read Runner's World or know any runners, you will quickly find that runners are probably the humblest braggers you know, in a proud sort of way. They brag when they run well. When they run poorly, they don't quit. They put their shoes on again the next morning and hit the road in prep for a future race. That's the humble nature of runners.

When they run well, the endorphins last long past their shelf life. You literally believe you could take Everest if given a chance. (I think our bodies were designed to be sore after a race just so God could prevent a misguided runner from actually taking a hike up Everest in a state of delusional euphoria. Lactic acid can bring you back to reality, quickly).

Just observe a local marathon someday. See how the runners who fared well behave after the race. They bounce around on blisters, high-fiving everyone and cheering on the later runners. They will gladly pick up all the cups that fall when tired runners collapse into the water table trying to reach a cup at the finish line. And they will invariably take their shirts off. They are bronze. They are sweaty. This is the bragger inside every runner. (As an aside, the later runners at the finish don't take their shirts off. It's a strange phenomenon).

But of any athlete I know, runners have the right to brag when they do well. The training is hard. The competition is painful. The outcome is variable. Few sports induce pain in the preparation, competition, and recovery stages. Running is one of them. I think boxing is another, or rowing, or cross country skiing, and probably figure skating and ice hockey, okay so maybe there are many sports defined by their monopoly on pain. However, when is the last time you saw a hockey player turn around and high-five his opponent just after he smashed him into the glass? Runners are friends with the competition. For a really amazing story on this see: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/born-to-run-the-marathon/. Just drop down to the part the reads, "And then I saw Derartu Tulu," and go from there. You won't waste your time with that article like you are doing with this blog.

So you see, runners are your friends, in any walk or run of life. Can we just please brag when we do well? I promise you won't get tired of it because it won't happen often. Holding back the happy effects of the runner's high is like trying to tell Santa to stop "Ho-Hoing." A physiologic impossibility.

So there I was last night under the full moon in Sabino Canyon National Park, high-fiving and picking up cups to put in the trash. And I was proud to be able to feed a family of four, even if only for one night. And no, I did not take my shirt off.

As a post script I wanted to mention the satisfaction of a beard. There is nothing better than trimming one. When trimmed, I look down into the sink, see my clipped hair and think: "I know I'm lazy and have much to be desired but at least I can count on you, hair, to keep on trucking away, 24-7." If only I could work as hard as hair.

Born to Ride

I stole into the road cycling crowd. By stumbling across a "Tricats" jersey in a thrift store and with the gift of a road bike for my birthday a while back, I am able to play the part better than a jack-o-lantern on Halloween. I am a runner, not a cyclist. But I try. And try I did last Saturday at the 21st annual Tour de Mesa.

For a husband, and kid, with over a hundred thousand in debt, running appeals to me for practical reasons. For about thirty-five bucks a year I can take my sport anywhere. I've taken it through downtown Boston, Pittsburgh, Paris, Masada, Ghana and the beaches of Mexico. I've even hit the pavement on a dirt track in a small farming villa in Brazil. But of all those runs my favorite is still the one I staged across the field of Gettysburg on a hot day in July. My brother-in-law and I were like kids on Christmas morning after that run, at least that's what I remember. But most of my runs are on my local roads here in Tucson, and that's just as good because when I run it feels good to be alive, no matter where I am. I'd like to say I was born to run, but someone wrote about that already.

Born to ride? I'm not so sure after Saturday. In fact, I'm not so sure anybody was born to ride. Take the comedy of horrors I witnessed during the race. Things you just never see at your local 5K run:

First: You have a bunch of adults straddling a bike with skinny wheels. To maintain balance, we whip our thighs and knees at right angles to the bike. Check out a biker trying to balance at a stoplight sometime, he may remind you of a ballerina on wheels. So there you are at the start of the race, a bunch of adults posing like ballerinas on bikes. Oh, we do our best to look good. From the sweet uniforms, shades, and helmets, we exude coolness. Runners have nothing on bikers when it comes to workout attire.

Second: The draft concept. The idea is clever. With a group of two or more riders, you race in single file. If you are drafting you try and bring your front wheel right up next to the rider in front of you. The physics of his motion will suck you right along. I expend 60% of my energy drafting where I would be using 90% riding alone. Drafting rocks.

(There is a similar technique in running, but since runners usually don't move faster than 10 or 12 miles an hour, it doesn't really help to conserve energy.)

But drafting is dangerous. Ten miles into my race last Saturday I found a good group to draft with. All four of us took turns leading and following. But at one intersection a rider slowed and the two behind him smashed right into his rear. The front rider was pummeled to the ground. I hopped off my bike and ran to where he lay in the road, his feet still clipped into the bike. He had a two inch gash above his right eye and his eye balls were shifting back and forth horizontally in saccadic fashion. In a matter of twenty seconds this Paul, if his recollection of his name is correct, had no idea where he was or what he was doing. I freed his feet from his bike and then another biker showed up saying, "I'm an ER doc, what happened." Needless to say, I was not needed much after that. So I took off. For some reason a line from Mission Impossible came to mind as I was riding away from the accident. "Man down Ethan, man down."

Third: You just can't stop to pick up a twenty you see on the ground. If you are out running and see money on the trail, you stop and pick it up. Then you spend the rest of the run wondering how many ice cream cones you will buy with it. You don't have that luxury if you spot money during a bike rice. But there it was. A big, fat twenty lying in the road. I imagine a biker was fishing in his back pocket for goo when he accidentally pulled out the twenty. He wouldn't know his post-race BBQ money was missing until that juicy burger was on a plate in front of him. Isn't there a Greek tragedy based on a similar situation? Anyway, I couldn't pick up that twenty because if I stopped I would have been mowed down by the twenty riders immediately behind me. Some lucky runner would get it though. For the rest of the race I rode over new bike tubes, expensive water bottles, unused CO2 cartridges, and more good stuff. For a retired dumpster diver, that was hard to do.

Fourth: History repeats itself in a bike race. So there I was drafting behind three other riders at the 45 mile mark. A physically fit father, his daughter, and a sixty-year-old with a yellow Alaska jersey. They were fast. They were cool too. All business and no play. Then a police officer at an intersection held up both his arms to stop oncoming traffic as we passed through. The fit father thought the cop was telling him to stop, so he did. His daughter piled right into him, followed by the Alaska man, and once again I barely missed crashing. Man down Spencer, man down. This one happened to be a little more bloody. I won't give you the details but just imagine what a chain ring can do to a man's ankle with the right velocity and angle. I was looking around for an ER doc after that one. So in one morning I saw more blood cycling than I ever have in all my time running. Talk about cool.

So there it is, ballerinas on bikes, dangerously drafting and passing up twenty's on the ground only to be on the ground minutes later in an awful crash. But gosh we look cool doing it! Happy trails...

The one and only...

"He should have lived in a different generation," said Anna. She said this after our inspection of a storage cellar on Grandpa's property. I agree. He is the ultimate survivalist, my Grandpa Hansen. A quick survey of his ranch, which I think more and more of as a compound, would show he and Grandma are pretty close to living off the grid. With the help of Rafael, a friend Grandpa met in Mexico, he built his home, barn, garage, gazebo, storage shelters water tank, and turtle farm. Oh, and there was a '72 three-quarter ton Ford pick-up to haul supplies. One day that pick-up was given to me. I rumbled to and from ASU in it my freshman year. But in it's practical days, that truck was the legs for Rafael and Grandpa. And they worked hard.

The house is made of walls three feet thick filled with dirt from the ground. With a white stucco exterior and red tile roof, it has a unique mexican/home-made look to it. One hundred feet south of the house, Rafael and Grandpa erected a parking garage from huge timber logs. There is a steel corrugated roof to supply shade to the garage. Underneath you can fit two dune-buggies, a truck, a minivan, a volkswagon bus, a honda accord, another small pick-up, and two ATC's. On the sides of the posts multiple tools hang. Grandpa knows the EXACT location of each tool. This is constantly amazing to me since I frequently lose books I'm reading in my own 400 square foot apartment. But, I'm no survivalist.

Yet another 100 feet south of the parking garage is the previously mentioned storage cellar in the earth. With a 3-foot high ceiling you could probably fit five people inside. To this day I'm not sure what it's for. Just make sure to remove the rattlesnakes cooped up inside before you venture in for a nap. As for a future hiding spot in capture the flag, I think I know where I'm headed.

If you travel back to the house and a little northeast, you'll come to the gazebo. This gazebo puts the dainty ones you see in English films to shame. It's made of a massive cement foundation. Underneath lies another storage cellar. Above lies a deck you can reach by way of a windy stair case. I've seen countless shooting stars on that deck and consider it my favorite place on the ranch.

If you look in the southwest direction while on top of the gazebo, you'll see another building shrouded in pine trees. The pine trees are the remains of a farm Grandpa once started. Three of their progeny are standing tall in our old yard in Mesa, AZ. They too are survivalists. But it is to this building you must never go if visiting the Ranch. It's off limits. I once took Anna when she was my fiance to this building while Granpda was in it and he nearly disowned me. (He would never disown me, I promise) But we won't discuss that building. It serves a purpose and that's all that need to be said.

Finally, directly east of his home is a wash with a network of trails. Me and the cousins have spent hundreds of hours speeding around those washes on Grandpa's ATC's. We've built bonfires. We've camped out. We've watched in horrific awe during the monsoons as the wash runs like the raging Colorado. And we've hunted jackrabbits in the wash. I think one of my favorite memories was when Anna stepped on a tarantula in the wash. All three of us got a fright. The tarantula lived. Oh, and just ask my sisters about "The Expedition" in the wash. A great family story.

So that's the essence of the ranch built by Rafael and Grandpa, more or less. As an aside, Rafael was involved in exciting episodes in Grandpa's life involving illegal alien smugglings. If you ever ask Grandpa whether he has spent a night in a Mexican prison, he'd be lying if he didn't say "si."

But...he's a survivalist, and life finds a way. And it was life finding a way that took Grandpa away from maybe becoming that survivalist who spends his days in the mountains in a van. No, life found it's way into Grandpa's life. He met Maurine. And they got married and had eight kids. Along with my Dad, most of the others have provided me with love, room, and board at various times of my youth. So, I quickly learned that when I want the familiar comforts such as love, room, or board, I can turn to Dad, or Mom, or anyone of my aunts and uncles. But when I want a "unique" experience, really a one-of-a-kind experience, I just have to visit Grandpa and Grandma out on their ranch.

I'm convinced no other grandchild has, or will ever have, the experiences I've had with them. I could write for hundreds of pages the memories we share and treasure, all unique in the very familiar grandparent-grandchild system. Yesterday, Anna and I participated in Grandpa the Survivalist at his best. He gave us yet another unique, cherished memory. It was the "Raising of the Ocotillo," as my aunt from Oregon called it.

To establish the setting for the memory, I will mention that last year it rained much in Arizona. As a result, a huge Century plant sprouted up near the gazebo. It was so big it captured my Grandpa's heart. And a little while back it collapsed, as most century plants do with time. The survivalist in Grandpa jumped to action and he determined to stand the plant upright again on a weekend when all his daughters were in town to visit. With Grandpa as foreman, he directed three clumps of aunts at the base of three guy wires to lift up the century plant and stake it upright in the ground again. I'll never forget watching up on the gazebo as my aunts, and mom, shuffled to and fro under the directions of Grandpa to raise the ocotillo back to life. On the way home that afternoon I mentioned to Anna, "I still don't know why he wanted to raise the plant back up." But I don't care, I guess. It was unique. It was Grandpa. It was family!

Drunk on Laurel

If you come to Tucson today we'd take you out on a bike ride. Pick any road with a bike lane and landscaped median and you'll encounter rows of Texas Mountain Laurel trees, in bloom. You don't have to see them to know you're passing them. I've never been to a winery but I imagine the aroma is similar to these trees.

Saturday morning I was out riding, drunk on the smell of Laurel flowers. The flowers, which happen to resemble clumps of grapes on the vine, are poisonous. So don't eat any if you run out of cliff bars. Or at least give them to your competition. But out I was riding, swerving in and out of the bike lane. I usually swerve while checking out my chiseled calf muscles. This time I was swerving because I was quite drunk on Laurel flower goodness. But I took control of my handlebars the moment I imagined myself telling the ED doctors, who I probably know, the reason I crashed was because I was "smelling flowers." I made it safely home.

But the damage was done. I was imbibed for the day. How else can you explain a mature adult charging his mature wife with two light sabers inside Michael's craft store that evening? After some quick strokes of death Anna and I turned around to hear a worker down the aisle say to her colleague, "They're not kids." Apparently the worker's wage was enough to get her to tell kids to stop horsing around, but not adults. So the worker just walked away with a justly dealt scowl on her face. As we walked out the store I asked Anna, "What's more demeaning to our pride, hearing: 'Oh, they're just kids' or 'Oh, they're not kids' ?" To me it doesn't matter, I was drunk and I blamed it on the Laurels. Come ride in Tucson with us for a good time...

The Warmth of Other "Suns"

Grant Hill’s Response to Jalen Rose

By GRANT HILL

Associated PressGrant Hill currently plays for the Phoenix Suns.

“The Fab Five,” an ESPN film about the Michigan basketball careers of Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson from 1991 to 1993, was broadcast for the first time Sunday night. In the show, Rose, the show’s executive producer, stated that Duke recruited only black players he considered to be “Uncle Toms.” Grant Hill, a player on the Duke team that beat Michigan in the 1992 Final Four, reflected on Rose’s comments.

I am a fan, friend and longtime competitor of the Fab Five. I have competed against Jalen Rose and Chris Webber since the age of 13. At Michigan, the Fab Five represented a cultural phenomenon that impacted the country in a permanent and positive way. The very idea of the Fab Five elicited pride and promise in much the same way the Georgetown teams did in the mid-1980s when I was in high school and idolized them. Their journey from youthful icons to successful men today is a road map for so many young, black men (and women) who saw their journey through the powerful documentary, “The Fab Five.”

It was a sad and somewhat pathetic turn of events, therefore, to see friends narrating this interesting documentary about their moment in time and calling me a bitch and worse, calling all black players at Duke “Uncle Toms” and, to some degree, disparaging my parents for their education, work ethic and commitment to each other and to me. I should have guessed there was something regrettable in the documentary when I received a Twitter apology from Jalen before its premiere. I am aware Jalen has gone to some length to explain his remarks about my family in numerous interviews, so I believe he has some admiration for them.

In his garbled but sweeping comment that Duke recruits only “black players that were ‘Uncle Toms,’ ” Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle-class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today.

I am beyond fortunate to have two parents who are still working well into their 60s. They received great educations and use them every day. My parents taught me a personal ethic I try to live by and pass on to my children.

I come from a strong legacy of black Americans. My namesake, Henry Hill, my father’s father, was a day laborer in Baltimore. He could not read or write until he was taught to do so by my grandmother. His first present to my dad was a set of encyclopedias, which I now have. He wanted his only child, my father, to have a good education, so he made numerous sacrifices to see that he got an education, including attending Yale.

This is part of our great tradition as black Americans. We aspire for the best or better for our children and work hard to make that happen for them. Jalen’s mother is part of our great black tradition and made the same sacrifices for him.

My teammates at Duke — all of them, black and white — were a band of brothers who came together to play at the highest level for the best coach in basketball. I know most of the black players who preceded and followed me at Duke. They all contribute to our tradition of excellence on the court.

It is insulting and ignorant to suggest that men like Johnny Dawkins (coach at Stanford), Tommy Amaker (coach at Harvard), Billy King (general manager of the Nets), Tony Lang (coach of the Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins in Japan), Thomas Hill (small-business owner in Texas), Jeff Capel (former coach at Oklahoma and Virginia Commonwealth), Kenny Blakeney (assistant coach at Harvard), Jay Williams (ESPN analyst), Shane Battier (Memphis Grizzlies) and Chris Duhon (Orlando Magic) ever sold out their race.

To hint that those who grew up in a household with a mother and father are somehow less black than those who did not is beyond ridiculous. All of us are extremely proud of the current Duke team, especially Nolan Smith. He was raised by his mother, plays in memory of his late father and carries himself with the pride and confidence that they instilled in him.

The sacrifice, the effort, the education and the friendships I experienced in my four years are cherished. The many Duke graduates I have met around the world are also my “family,” and they are a special group of people. A good education is a privilege.

Just as Jalen has founded a charter school in Michigan, we are expected to use our education to help others, to improve life for those who need our assistance and to use the excellent education we have received to better the world.

A highlight of my time at Duke was getting to know the great John Hope Franklin, James B. Duke Professor of History and the leading scholar of the last century on the total history of African-Americans in this country. His insights and perspectives contributed significantly to my overall development and helped me understand myself, my forefathers and my place in the world.

Ad ingenium faciendum, toward the building of character, is a phrase I recently heard. To me, it is the essence of an educational experience. Struggling, succeeding, trying again and having fun within a nurturing but competitive environment built character in all of us, including every black graduate of Duke.

My mother always says, “You can live without Chaucer and you can live without calculus, but you cannot make it in the wide, wide world without common sense.” As we get older, we understand the importance of these words. Adulthood is nothing but a series of choices: you can say yes or no, but you cannot avoid saying one or the other. In the end, those who are successful are those who adjust and adapt to the decisions they have made and make the best of them.

I caution my fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped them back then for their appearance and swagger. I wish for you the restoration of the bond that made you friends, brothers and icons.

I am proud of my family. I am proud of my Duke championships and all my Duke teammates. And, I am proud I never lost a game against the Fab Five.

Grant Henry Hill
Phoenix Suns
Duke ‘94