Imagine not having access to any OEM replacement parts for something as complicated as a printer.
This is a letter I recently sent to Keen Footwear…
I’ve just visited your website regarding getting replacements for my worn out laces of my Newport sandals. Years ago after I bought my first pair of Newports, I had to replace the laces just like this second pair I now own. I recall the process was fairly easy in purchasing the laces and having them shipped. Imagine my surprise to visit your website today hoping to do the same thing that I did years ago only to find out the actual Keen website doesn’t carry replacement laces—or even recommend an outlet where OEM laces can be purchased!
Do you have any idea how disappointing it is to read, “…We don’t currently have replacement laces for all of our shoes, we do offer a few replacement laces on our website…” That’s like going to KFC and being told they don’t have any chicken or they only wings. Imagine a printer manufacturer like Canon that doesn’t offer replacement toner/ink jet cartridges for their printers.
Oh yeah, I know, I can get knock-offs of the laces from third party outlets/suppliers, but isn’t that like being told there’s a cheaper cologne at Walmart that smells very much like the one I’m looking for at… say, Macy’s? Could you imagine a high-end department store no longer carrying a popular item and telling their customers they can find pretty much the same thing at Walmart?
Up until today I have always thought the Keen was a pretty top-notch shoe manufacturer. I’ll be damned if I ever buy anything else from Keen—nor will I ever recommend them.
With LeBron James surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record yesterday, and securing his name in the debate of who was the greatest to ever play the game of basketball, I considered that this might be a good time to mention my possible one-on-one games with him in the summer of 1997. The truth is, I don’t know for sure that it was LeBron James because he would have been only twelve-years-old at the time, and hadn’t achieved any notable fame beyond his circle of friends at that point in his life.
With that said, in the summer of 1997, I made my annual “pilgrimage” back to my home town of Akron, Ohio. Unlike most summer excursions back to that part of the country, on this particular summer I was home for the entire time as I was in the midst of a divorce and I took on a summer gig at Davis Printing in nearby Barberton working in their prepress department.
On one particular late afternoon/early evening, my parents were having a discussion that was starting to turn into an argument, and I just didn’t want to be there to take sides for whatever unfolded. So, I grabbed my basketball from the garage and headed to Reservoir Park in nearby Goodyear Heights of East Akron to shoot some baskets. As a kid growing up, we would often go to Reservoir or Davenport Park to play basketball, tennis, softball, or just hang out, so I thought it would be fun to visit one of my old “stomping grounds” as an adult of 37-years old.
The courts were vacant when I arrived and after about 20 minutes of shooting around on my own, a young, but tall teen on a bicycle circled around the court and started shooting baskets in one of the adjacent courts. I remember thinking that at any time, more kids of the same age would soon show up and join him, but that never happened.
Instead, he made his way over to my court and asked if I wanted to play a game of one-on-one.
I remember a sense of surprise coming over me to discover how young he really was when he was right there in front of me—like, not even a teenager—yet, he towered over me at around six-feet tall. I didn’t flinch in his offer thinking he was probably some clumsy young kid that hadn’t adjusted to his new size and I would simply out-hustle him even if he had the height advantage. Keeping in mind, that I was never a good basketball player, something told me I could somehow teach him a thing or two.
As it turned out, he might have been young and oversized for his age, but I never detected anything from his basketball skills and foot work that struck me as clumsy. Further, he ran circles around me. So much for out-hustling him too.
A young LeBron at St. Vincent/St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio.
He easily defeated me in the game, although I don’t remember the score. I might have made three shots to whatever he tallied to win.
As a courteous gesture, he asked if I wanted to go for another game. Even though I knew I was no match for him, I took him up on the offer with the hope that he wore himself out in the first game. Again, I was wrong on this account, but now there was no element of surprise in the second beatdown.
I don’t recall doing any better against him in the second game, but once the drubbing had ended, he announced that he had better get home before it was too late. That was an easy out for me, because I would have hated to tell him that I was not interested in a third game of humiliation under the guise of basketball.
As he walked across the court to his bike, I said, “Hey, what’s your name?” As he turned around to answer, a hot rodding motorist screamed down nearby Brittain Road, and all I heard from the kid was “James.”
I didn’t consider what I didn’t hear, so I simply said back to him something generic like, “Take care James and be careful on that bike.”
I don’t think I ever mentioned that day again—or for years after—except to tell my father the next morning over coffee that some young kid made a fool of me on the basketball court at Reservoir Park. That would not have been news to him.
Years later, like many Americans, I came to hear and know about this basketball phenom from my hometown of Akron, Ohio named LeBron James, but that one-on-one game at Reservoir Park in 1997 never crossed my mind. It was only when I learned much later that as a young kid, James would ride his bicycle all over Akron looking for pick-up games wherever they could be found. Suddenly that uneventful pick-up game in 1997 that was barely worth mentioning slapped me hard across my face.
I immediately started researching everything I could find about his adolescent years. Born on December 30, 1984, Lebron James would have been about twelve-and-a-half years old in the summer of 1997. At that age in his life, he was about six-feet tall too. Was he riding his bike around Akron as a 12-year-old? It’s hard to say. I know if I had been doing the same at that age, I wouldn’t have told my parents. I wish I had studied his face more because in looking at images from his youth, I can’t say I remember his face as much as I remember his moves.
To this day, I continue to ask myself, “Is it really possible that I had a brush with greatness in a couple of one-on-one basketball games with King James himself?”
If it was LeBron James who truly schooled me in basketball on that summer day in 1997, it must have been a slow day for him. I like to think that he was on his way home from some earlier, more intense pick-up games, and there I was—an easy, non-threatening opponent—as he cruised by Reservoir Park. In short, I was the perfect cool-down activity to end his day before arriving home.
Google Earth over the basketball courts at Akron’s Reservoir Park.
My 62-year-old grill including the recently evicted #29 (in red).
The first tooth I ever had pulled was a stubborn and rotting, canine baby/deciduous tooth. I remember wiggling it around forever, but it just wouldn’t come out from my timid attempts. So when it came time to visit Dr. Burian for a regular checkup (a.k.a., “Dr. Barburian” by many of the kids in our Akron, Ohio neighborhood), he did me the honors of easily removing the stubborn tooth despite my unfounded anxiety. I walked out of his office disappointed that I hadn’t been able to do it myself.
Fast forward to year 21 of my life as a newly minted college graduate, I learned that getting my wisdom teeth (numbers 1, 16, 17, and 32) removed while still on my parent’s insurance would be a smart thing to do even though they were not causing me any problems at the time. Dr. Burian assured me that they would be problematic later on in my life.
As a result I went through with the procedure that resulted in total sedation (for the first time in my life) as my wisdom teeth had to be cut out rather than simply pulled. I remember waking up and noting that my t-shirt removed for surgery had been put back on me and tucked back in my pants. All I wanted to know was who had their hands down my pants without my consent.
A couple of years later I was diagnosed with TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder), that would necessitate the removal of all four of my first bicuspids (5, 12, 21, and 28) before starting on a two-year stint with orthodontic braces.
In a recent visit to my dentist, he discovered that one of my second bicuspids (29)—which was crowned years ago—appeared to be dead (necrotic/non-vital) even though I wasn’t having any notable pain. Drilling down and through the crown for a root canal was the recommended treatment. So I made a follow up appointment for the root canal. At the time of making the appointment, I was asked if I wanted to be sedated with nitrous oxide (laughing gas). With an air of overconfidence, I declined since I had been through two other root canals in the past that were a breeze.
Unfortunately the root canal did not go well. Good old number 29 was not only dead, it was turning into a fossil as most of the nerve canal had collapsed from calcification. On top of that, near the bottom where it connected to my jawbone, it had become infected. And, because the tooth was in such bad shape underneath the crown, the drilling was breaking and cracking the tooth.
“We need to switch gears,” declared Dr. Rock Hull, my dentist. Meaning: we need to extract that tooth.
I can’t say there was much surprise in his announcement given that when he discovered the necrotic tooth a few weeks earlier, he had said that the remedy was either a root canal or extraction.
So, the crown was then cut off and the meticulous (and painful) work of extracting a crumbling tooth that couldn’t be grabbed cleanly commenced. Despite the pain, I actually felt sorry for Dr. Rock. It wasn’t going how he had planned and his patients for the day were queuing up like stranded planes waiting to land at a closed airport.
After nearly three hours in the chair (sans the nitrous oxide), and a lot of sweat in the room, plans for an immediate implant in this fresh void were scrubbed because the extraction was so complicated and messy. The battle zone where tooth 29 once resided would require time to heal. I wish I could have hung around like a fly on the wall to listen to the chatter at the end of the day between Dr. Rock and his staff. Surely #29 and I were trending.
Looking back, I’m glad it wasn’t Dr. Burian working on me that day. Although I can’t imagine how the experience could have been more painful, I’ve no doubt it would have been. After a battle like that, I couldn’t be happier to have a dentist who is young, smart, and empathetic to an old geezer like myself. Neither one of us enjoyed that, but I’m glad I went through it under Dr. Rock’s watch.
Now that this extraction is behind me, I feel a bit dirty, a little less intelligent, even White Trash-ish …as if I lost my virginity to a sleazy barfly. Hopefully whatever replaces my real tooth (an implant or bridge), I’ll feel like my old self again. Nevertheless, even if I only possess 23 or my original 36 God-given teeth, I have to keep it in perspective and find a way to be thankful. After all, my father lost all but his lower front teeth when he was 45, and here I am at 62 writing about one bad tooth.
BTW: That problem baby tooth that I couldn’t wiggle loose in my childhood… that was pretty much in the same location as #29. (Queue the scary music.)
mdt1960 