{"id":462,"date":"2008-02-08T18:00:18","date_gmt":"2008-02-08T23:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=462"},"modified":"2010-07-29T23:11:17","modified_gmt":"2010-07-30T03:11:17","slug":"prisoner-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=462","title":{"rendered":"Prisoner of “Freedom”"},"content":{"rendered":"

photo-2-small.JPG<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cIn prison, those things withheld from
\nand denied to the prisoner become
\nprecisely what he wants most of all.\u201d<\/p>\n

—Eldridge Cleaver
\n_______________________________
\n_______________________________<\/p>\n

He would be free, he thought.<\/p>\n

Free from the prison of his unhappy circumstances. <\/p>\n

Free to live life as it should be lived, to greet and seize each day. Savor it. Extract from it all he could. To live. Really live. And be free to share his passions with the \u201clove of his life,\u201d his soul mate.<\/p>\n

He had a wife. And family. And a very successful business he had patiently nurtured over the course of many years. Wealth. A beautiful new home. On top of a hill, sur- rounded by trees and fields and a pond. <\/p>\n

But his soul was empty. He chafed to live. To be free. He threw his energy into many different things. Missions. Flying. A new church group, founded from the ground up. He even bought an old church house and donated it to the church group. <\/p>\n

He was voted into office as a church leader. Not an elder. A team, they called it. He was one of five. Took his turn occasionally preaching a sermon. He waved his Bible and peered over his bifocals at his audience from behind the little podium. Forcefully proclaimed the Word. With darkness in his heart and death in his soul.<\/p>\n

Because something had happened.<\/p>\n

He had found the \u201clove of his life.\u201d His soul mate. There was only one small problem. She was married to someone else. <\/p>\n

Despite that, they launched into a passionate affair. In secret, as such things always begin. It seemed so exciting. The affair was different from all others in history, he felt, because it involved them. He convinced himself it was not wrong, but right. The affair continued for about a year, with increasing intensity. <\/p>\n

He envisioned the future, when they would be together. When they would be free. And begin a new life. In a faraway place.<\/p>\n

Then one day, almost exactly one year ago, he made some bad decisions. Let down his guard. Showed up at a public event. Displayed for all to see his devoted attach- ment to her. Trailed around after her like a smitten puppy. The relationship was exposed. At least a part of it. <\/p>\n

The proverbial crap hit the proverbial fan. A major explosion followed. <\/p>\n

He bluffed. Lied. Blatantly. Pounded his fist on the table. Wept some crocodile tears. Claimed it was not what it appeared to be. Figured the full force of his aggressive personality would overwhelm any inquiries.<\/p>\n

The bluff worked. For awhile. And the lies. But not for long. The truth eventually clawed its way to the surface. Was proclaimed from the roof tops. Flew across the land like a lightning bolt. In all its raw and bloody details. He staggered from the blow. <\/p>\n

Unknown to anyone, he had traveled to a large southwestern city and bought a big house on two acres. For himself. And his soul mate. By then, she had left her husband and moved to another large city, not that far away from the city where he bought his big new house. <\/p>\n

His big new house was a beautiful place. In an upscale neighborhood. Perfect views of the mountains. And high-desert sunsets. A place to be free. <\/p>\n

And so he left. His family. His church. His business. All his friends. Moved two thousand miles away to his big new house. With its beautiful views of the mountains and high-desert sunsets.<\/p>\n

Now I can be free, he thought. He changed his first name. New life, new identity, and all that. Hiked the mountains around his big new house. Tanned in the sun. Bought a new convertible. Lost some weight. Let his hair grow long. Whitened his teeth. Took dancing lessons. So he could dance with his soul mate.<\/p>\n

It was fun. He felt free. For awhile. But he was alone, mostly. And strangely empty. His support structure evaporated. Old friends no longer spoke to him. Or hung out. Or returned his calls. Slowly, realization dawned. Of what he was becoming. An outcast. A pariah. Persona non grata.<\/p>\n

But he still had his soul mate. He clung to the relationship. It was all he had. She came to see him. For a long weekend. In his new place, his big new house with its beautiful views of the mountains and high-desert sunsets. <\/p>\n

She was all he wanted. All he\u2019d ever dreamed of. But he wondered, deep down, if she really felt the same. If she was really true to him, in the big city where she lived when they were apart. Deep down, he also knew the answer.<\/p>\n

They flew around in his plane, a twin engine Barron. One day, as the plane was just off the ground, a wind shear nearly brought it down. He struggled for control. For a brief second almost lost it. But somehow, he got it back. The plane bucked, then steadied. And straightened.<\/p>\n

A crash would have killed them both. Provided tons of dramatic sermon fodder. For a lot of preachers. For a long, long time. <\/p>\n

But it didn\u2019t happen. Because he was who he was, he figured. Such things couldn\u2019t happen to him.<\/p>\n

Now and again he went back to his old home, the area he\u2019d left. To see his family. To conduct business. But he discovered things had changed. Drastically. No one wanted to see him. And no one would. Not his old friends. Not even his children. The realization sank in deeper. What he was. An outcast. A pariah. A person not welcome.<\/p>\n

He always returned alone to his big new house two thousand miles away, with its beautiful views of the mountains and high-desert sunsets. Alone, with his freedom.<\/p>\n

One wonders. Had he been able to fathom the actual costs, would he have made the same choices? Danced to the same piped tune? Way back, when the affair began? Who knows? Maybe. Maybe not. But probably. <\/p>\n

In illicit matters of the heart, once certain lines are crossed, there comes a point of no return. Where perceived delights of instant gratification override any measured con- siderations of the terrible price. That the Piper will always require. Always. With no exceptions.<\/p>\n

So he finally has it. By the bushel and by the truckload. The \u201cfreedom\u201d he craved. So deeply, for so long. And finally pursued. And grasped. And held onto. At the cost of all he accumulated, all he treasured, relationship-wise, over a span of almost fifty years. <\/p>\n

But what is true freedom? And does he really have it? And what is he now? <\/p>\n

He is a wicked man. Living in darkness. With a hardened heart. With death in his soul. He is also a lot of other things. <\/p>\n

But one thing he is not. <\/p>\n

He is not free.
\n________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

ny-giants.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

It just doesn\u2019t happen. Not like that. Magically. At the last minute. When what must be done gets done, against all the laws of probability. When underdogs bristle, rise up, and seize the prize. And suddenly, the inevitable crowning ceremony dashed, exposed in shambles for the shell game it was.<\/p>\n

But wasn\u2019t it something? WOW, as one reader commented. What a game. It was without question the best Super Bowl I\u2019ve ever seen. Maybe the best ever. Certainly one of the best. <\/p>\n

I hosted my usual two Super Bowl guests. My brother Steve and my friend Paul Zook. I don\u2019t like to be around a lot of people; it detracts from the business of watching the game. Paul watches one football game a year. The Super Bowl, at my house. He and Steve have been coming now for probably the last five or six years. Paul always asks which team I\u2019m rooting for and picks the other one. It works. Makes it lively.<\/p>\n

I had plenty of food. Cheese, meat and chips. And a great pot of my award-winning (in my own mind) secret formula chip dip, which includes but is not limited to hamburger and cheese and salsa, all heated up in one gooey mass. My guests must have liked it, because they sure ate a lot of it. <\/p>\n

I warned my guests that if New England was leading by 20 points or more by halftime, I would shut down the party and send them home. They chuckled and kept right on feasting on chips and many bowls full of my award-winning chip dip.<\/p>\n

My thoughts on the game. Tom Brady spent a lot of time in a position that I liked a lot, lying flat on his back looking up at the domed roof. The Giants\u2019 defense dominated. Harried Brady. Hit him. Sacked him. He was shocked. And stunned. And out of his rhythm all night. And the amazing thing: that Giants defense did not get one off-sides penalty all night. They simply overpowered the Patriots\u2019 offensive line, causing an uncharacteristic number of false starts. <\/p>\n

Watching the entire game was exhausting. Because you knew, just knew, as surely as the vile Bellichek was wearing that ratty cut-sleeve hoody of his on the sidelines, that the Patriots were going to pull it out at the end. Sure enough, they scored with less than three minutes to play. Steve and I just looked at each other. But I forced myself to watch it to the bitter end.<\/p>\n

And then Eli Manning got his moment in the sun, and in front of a disbelieving world, coolly rose to the occasion and performed like a champion. The last drive of the game will quite likely go down as one of the all-time classics in football lore. <\/p>\n

super-bowl.jpg<\/a>
\nThe sequence of events.<\/p>\n

The final drive. Eighty-three yards. Every snap from center in the shotgun formation was low. Eli had to reach down for the ball. Every time. A fourth and one. An almost-interception. A near-sack, then the magic escape, the desperate throw, and equally magic catch. The touchdown a few plays later almost seemed like an afterthought. You knew they were going to get in somehow. Such magic just doesn\u2019t happen, not on the last drive of the Super Bowl. Once, maybe twice in a lifetime. That it all clicks. That the football gods smile. And that your team wins against insurmountable odds.<\/p>\n

After the touchdown, Steve and I joined about ninety million other people (out of the ninety-seven million watching in this country) in one long delirious shout of triumph. And high-fives. Paul Zook looked glum and pretended he didn\u2019t care. Which he probably didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The Patriots almost reached the summit. They had their hands on the latch of the golden door, and were pulling it open. To enter in triumph. To claim immortality as the greatest team ever, in NFL history. But suddenly their hands were slapped away, the golden door slammed in their faces. At the last possible minute, they failed. Tasted the agony of bitter defeat. It will haunt them always.<\/p>\n

They had a remarkable run. Winning 18 straight games. But many of their players are old. They were hanging on for this perfect season. A lot of them won\u2019t be back, I think.<\/p>\n

They had another problem. During their remarkable run, they dissed a lot of teams. Ran up the score. Classlessly. Ruthlessly. So it was easy to hate them. And so much the sweeter when they stumbled and failed at the exact moment the ultimate prize was in their grasp.<\/p>\n

I still respect the team. And some of the players. After the game, Tom Brady was a class act. He answered all questions. Honestly. Unlike his coach, the vile Bellichek, who dissed the Giants and the game by leaving the field before the game was officially over. And muttered clipped, one-word answers in the post-game interviews.<\/p>\n

It was great to see Coach Coughlin and Little Manning celebrate. Redemption is sweet. And Little Manning is now no longer just Payton\u2019s little brother. He is Sir Eli, knighted victorious on the battlefield of blood and fire. When the chips were down. Before hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide. The slayer of one of the greatest teams ever to play the game.<\/p>\n

In politics, Super Tuesday has come and gone. Not that I watched any of it. Or any of the talking heads. It appears that McCain pretty much has the Republican nomination locked up. I can\u2019t imagine how that happened. But it did.<\/p>\n

I WILL NOT vote for him, should he be the nominee. I just won\u2019t. And I encourage my readers not to, either. He might as well be a Democrat, from his atrocious voting record. On speech. On global warming. On immigration. He\u2019s Ted Kennedy\u2019s buddy. I believe Hillary would do less damage to this country than McCain. Not that I\u2019ll vote for her. I\u2019ll probably end up writing in a candidate, maybe Ron Paul. Or voting for the Constitutional Party candidate, if they can get one on the ballot.<\/p>\n

Happy Valentine’s Day (to those to whom it applies).<\/p>\n

YOU ARE WELCOME TO POST A COMMENT ON THE LINK ON THIS PAGE ONLY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn prison, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.\u201d —Eldridge Cleaver _______________________________ _______________________________ He would be free, he thought. Free from the prison of his unhappy circumstances. Free to live life as it should be lived, to greet and seize each day. Savor it. Extract […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1092,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}