Why I Bought Season Tickets

I was glued to the TV a few months ago, watching ESPN live coverage in the middle of a weekday afternoon, to see a high school basketball player announce a college decision.  Not my usual work day.  Or even how I'd typically choose to spend a Saturday afternoon.

But this was a big deal.

Lousy iPhone photo from my seat last season at the University of South Carolina women's final home game.

Because that athlete was a woman. A female high school basketball player. This ESPN coverage felt to me like the official stamp: Women's basketball has arrived.

The player is A'ja Wilson, then ranked the best female high school player in the country. She lives in the same town I live in--Columbia, South Carolina--and when she announced that she would stay here to play for Dawn Staley and the University of South Carolina, I jumped up from my sofa and screamed.

Pretty goofy, I admit.  But I was that excited.

When I was a girl, all my basketball heroes were guys.  I was a kid when N.C State won a national championship under Coach Norm Sloan with David Thompson flying through the air. I adored Thompson, but my favorite player was the one I could most closely identify with.  The short guy.  Monte Towe.  I wore tube socks like his. I wore a t-shirt with his giant face stretched across it.  I once hung around outside the locker room to get his autograph. He was wearing platform shoes. It was, after all, the 70s.

Eventually there were women to admire, women that girls who loved basketball could identify with--Coach Kay Yow, for one. Candace Parker, for another.  Maybe it's me and my ignorance--but I can't recall ESPN coverage of a high school girl announcing her college choice. Until A'ja Wilson.

I've been a fan of Gamecock women's basketball for years, buying individual tickets and going to games.  Since Staley became coach, a good program has become even more exciting.  I cheered last year for her team, sometimes until I was hoarse. The team attracts crowds to their home games. They made it to the Sweet 16. Now Staley's got all those amazing women back, and the poised and talented Wilson, our hometown girl, too.

So this year, I'm going all in. I'm a season ticket holder--and the first game's just a few weeks away.

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With friends Hugh and Ginger at the last home game for 2013-2014.

Peril at Machu Picchu

A client sent me to Peru earlier this summer, to teach a presentation skills class. It seemed like the perfect time to visit Machu Picchu, and lucky for me, a friend was free to come along.

So we went parasailing off the cliffs of Lima.

We gorged on ceviche and fermented corn juice until we thought we would burst--but didn't.

We survived the high altitude and guinea-pig-on-a-stick in Cusco.

And after a 90 minute drive, followed by a train trip and Mr. Toad's wild bus ride up the mountainside, arrived at a hotel just outside the entrance to the famed ruins.

The next morning, we beat the crowd and caught the sun coming up over Machu Picchu. We went back to the hotel for a leisurely breakfast, then headed out to hike the mountain you see behind the ruins.  Huuyana Picchu.  I was very proud to have purchased advance tickets for this.  Only a couple hundred people are permitted to walk up each day.

The crowd, gathered to watch the sun come up over the mountain peak

Going up wasn't so bad, until we got near the top. There, on a narrow ledge, we saw two lawyers from Brooklyn who we'd met at dinner the night before.  They were on the way down, and they seemed terrified.  They warned us: Do not let them send you down the other side of the mountain. Tell them you have heart problems! Tell them anything.  Don't let them send you that way.

This didn't make a lot of sense to us at the time. We inched up to the top. And as we got higher, and the trail became narrower, I began to feel a fear of heights kick in.  No guard rails. No barriers. Just cliffs and free falls in every direction. I couldn't imagine how the other route down could be worse.

At the peak, we were ordered to creep across a big, smooth rock face that led to another cliff.  On the cliff, a sign pointed to steps. Incan steps.  My friend Billy took a look, then said, "I'll stand over here and let you make your peace with that." 

I looked down. Uneven blocks of rock, hundreds of them, stuck onto the side of a mountain with nothing to catch you if you slipped. Or fell. Nothing at all between you and the river valley below.

We made our way down those steps like we were climbing down a ladder. Billy went first, a calm voice just below me.  "You can do this," he said more than once.  "It's no big deal. Just one step, then another."

I focused on what was in front of me, feeling around with the toe of my hiking boot for a solid spot to stand, step after step.  Now I could see what the Brooklyn lawyers had meant.  But it was too late to do anything except keep going. I pushed my fear down. I took my time. And I marveled that they could find 200 people willing to do this every day. I guess you don't know what you're in for until it's too late.

The "good" steps. I'm almost to safety, with brave Billy (center) waiting for me.

At the bottom of the mountain, Billy and I signed our names in the big ledger. We were accounted for. And we were some of the last people to come off the trail that day.  We sat on a bench and shared a bottle of water and a granola bar.  With Huuyana Picchu behind me, I was feeling a little braver.

"I guess it wasn't that bad," I said, wiping my face with my sleeve.

"Are you kidding?" He paused for a beat. "We could have f---ing died!"

It was the first time Billy had let on that he'd been scared.  Back in the hotel that night, I Googled the trail--and discovered that it's one of Outside magazine's most dangerous hikes in the world.

Still, I think I'd do it again.

Corral? Just Dessert?

There are words that always make me hesitate, which is something I tell businesspeople who take my writing classes when they worry about getting every word right. 

For example, I always pause and think twice when I write "food desert" for an article--one, because it's not my favorite bit of jargon and I'd love to delete it, and two, because "food dessert" sounds a lot more appealing.

My niece Coral is a victim of this brand of confusion all the time. She rides in horse shows. And I've yet to hear the ring announcer who doesn't introduce her as "Corral."

On the plus side, it inspired us to support Corral while Coral was competing in a two-day event at the North Carolina equestrian center. Corral is a nonprofit organization that makes riding available to girls who might not have the chance otherwise, giving these girls a chance to build confidence and excel in other areas of life, as well.

Coral and her second favorite writer, Otis Taylor, who probably never confuses his desert with dessert

But maybe you should expect a few pronunciation hitches when you name a kid Coral.  I was about to call it just deserts....or should that be just desserts.  I paused and thought about it.  No, surely I don't mean "only the sweet stuff after the main course."  I Googled for backup.  And for the effort, got exactly what I deserved.

Little House on the Outer Banks

“This is your Little House on the Prairie. ”

— Phyllis Theroux, counseling me at a writers' retreat

When my sisters and I were kids, our father built a cabin on the Outer Banks, the Cape Lookout National Seashore to be more specific. It was early in the 1970s. No, he didn't own the land--and that was part of the charm for him. He was introducing his children to the great American tradition of squatting, he used to say.

A photo of Core Banks from the National Park Service.

Whenever I tell stories from this time in my life, my friends will say I should write about it.  A few years ago at a writers' retreat in California, author Phyllis Theroux said, "This is your Little House on the Prairie."  And I think it is.

But here's the problem.  Though I rate this adventure as one of the most influential aspects of my upbringing, I struggle to remember the particulars.  My mother and sisters do, too.  Our father knew every detail. If only we'd listened more carefully to his stories. If only I'd videotaped it all or written it down.

But I didn't. He died 14 years ago. I've been trying to fill in the details when I can--the names of the other families who were our fellow squatters, the places we rode in our rusty old beach buggy, the adventures we had surviving storms, battling mosquitoes, and learning to catch our own food.

A couple of years ago, I started a little blog, so that I'd have a place to park that information when I came across it.  I'm not ready yet, but this is a story I want to write.

So if you do happen to know something about Core Banks and the little village of squatters who spent weekends there in the 1970s, please let me know--either here or over there.

Meanwhile, I'll tell you something I wish someone had told me.  When your nutty parents tell their crazy old stories you've heard a million times, don't moan, pull out your phone and check Facebook.  Pay attention.  Use your phone to record it.  Or how about this: Write it down.