WIMBLEDON, England -- "Can you read that?" I ask the woman behind the counter."Let's see," she says, fingering the little pink paper. She squints."My handwriting," I say, "it isn't . . .""Not to worry. I've seen worse."She finally smiles. "OK. How much do you want to wager on . . ." she squints again "...Serena Williams?""How much?" I say. "Uh . . ."
DENVER -- Hollywood is interested. They want a hockey movie. They dispatch a young producer to the Western Conference finals to assemble a cast. He wears sunglasses, a diamond earring, a leather coat and four cell phones.He asks me to help."I hear this Detroit team is loaded with stars," the producer says.It is, I say."Good. Get me the guy without a spleen."I beg your pardon?"The guy without a spleen. Sign him up. The Spleenless Swede. I love it!"You mean Fredrik Olausson, I say?
My family likes to laugh at this: I was 10, and we were on vacation, driving up California's breathtaking northern coast.Every couple of miles, my folks would say, "Ooh, look at the rocks! Look at the ocean! Isn't it beautiful?" And my siblings would clamber to the window for a better peek.I, on the other hand, never looked up. I was lost in comic books."You see that?" my father asked."Mm-hmm," I mumbled.
Tonight, on "60 Minutes," history will be made. An ex-president, Bill Clinton, and his old rival, ex-senator Bob Dole, will begin a stint as point-counterpoint debaters.Andy Warhol got it wrong. It's not fame everyone will have in the future; it's a chance to scream at someone on TV.The liberals already do it to the conservatives on CNN and Fox. Celebrities do it with Bill Maher on HBO. Ebert used to do it to Siskel, and now he does it to Roeper.
You couldn't miss Bob. To begin with, he was too tall. I may be average height, but when we stood together, I felt Bob bent over me like a huge tree looking down at an acorn it had dropped.Or maybe I was intimidated. Bob McGruder could do that to you -- not because he spoke loudly, because he didn't. And not because he was quick to anger, because he wasn't. Not because he glared, stared, looked over you, through you, or dismissed you altogether as some bosses do.
Lisa Kesner is looking for a job. She used to be a flight attendant. She worked for several years on the Red Wings' private plane, where she was reportedly conscientious and safety-oriented. You know, the things you want in a flight attendant.That is, if you're a regular person, flying commercial. If you're a multimillionaire athlete, flying private, you may have different expectations.
IGOR Larionov always had been a quiet man, but this was a different silence. Here, in the year he would turn 40, he was playing out the final days of his contract. An offer he once deemed "insulting" had been pulled off the table with nothing offered in its place. He was facing an ugly truth, one all athletes face sooner or later. His reputation was exceeding his productivity.
Let me get this straight. The starting quarterback leaves, and the backup has a good day. The starting running back is injured, and the backups have a coming out party. The starting kick returner is gone, and the backup has huge numbers.Hmm. If we can just get the starting receivers, cornerbacks and defensive linemen out of there, this team might win a few games.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
