Sometimes, the Cheer Goes Out of the Holidays
Because I am feeling all Christmassy, I suppose, this is going to be the most melancholy, most maudlin column I have written in some time. Hope you won’t mind.
I am in a bad, sad mood, because I have just read the most depressing newspaper pages I have read in a long, long time.
Wasn’t the paper’s fault. It just printed the facts. Didn’t blow them out of proportion. Treated them with the proper dignity.
It’s just that by the time I stopped reading, I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Because these stories made me think of human beings, and what they have to endure. Made me think of the holidays, and how merry we all long to be.
The paper reported that Tom Gray, a football player from Cal State Northridge, collapsed while socializing with friends Friday night and died after desperate efforts to revive him. He was 21 years old.
The paper reported that Mike Goff, a basketball player from Fullerton College, collapsed at his Anaheim home Saturday after eating breakfast and was rushed to a hospital, where he died. He was 19.
The paper reported that Ramon Ramos, a rookie basketball player for the Portland Trail Blazers, remained comatose in a hospital after being critically injured in an automobile accident. He is 22.
The paper reported that Kevin Copeland was honored as Southern California’s top high school football player at a banquet Sunday in Anaheim, a few weeks after collapsing during a Dorsey High School football game against San Pedro and dying of heart failure. He was 17.
My heartfelt sympathy goes out to the families and friends of these kids, and I pray that not too many others need know such silent nights this Christmas.
I know what it’s like. It was only a couple of Christmases ago when both of my parents occupied rooms in the same hospital, one floor apart, too immobilized even to visit one another, one by a stroke, the other by lung disease. You haven’t hated Christmas until a doctor telephones you at 3 a.m. and tells you to get back over to the hospital, because your father might not make it through the night.
Everybody wants to go out and sing carols and be cheerful each Christmas. Well, I’m sorry. I just don’t have it in me. Christmas to me means only two things this year. It’s Christ’s birthday. And it’s Monday. That’s it.
But we go along, doing what we have to do, making our plans, buying our gifts, doing our jobs. I’ll probably spend the holidays watching football games. Joy to the world.
I’m alive, so I should simply rejoice in that. You should, too. Hang onto someone you love this Christmas. Spend time with friends or relatives. Me, I’m all Scrooged out. You, you should appreciate people while they’re still here, hug them tightly. Not everyone can.
Tommie Gray was visiting friends near the University Park housing complex in Northridge, just before midnight Friday, when a playful wrestling match began by the swimming pool. Tommie, 6-foot-3 and 235 pounds, extremely popular with coaches and teammates, put a big, friendly bearhug on a buddy. They were fooling around, seeing which one could toss the other into the pool.
Then he went limp.
He had what appeared to be a seizure. Tommie’s roommate, Derrick Smith, put his fingers in his friend’s mouth, trying to keep him from swallowing his tongue. Tommie was unconscious. Derrick then ran to find campus police, who in turn called the fire department.
One of the cops used CPR on Tommie and appeared to have revived him. Then, just as suddenly, he expired.
Mike Goff played basketball Friday night for Fullerton College. Two nights earlier, he had scored 25 points. He had been the team’s most valuable player the season before. His high school coach at Anaheim Magnolia, where Mike once scored 53 in one game, called him the best player the school ever had.
Mike got up Saturday morning and ate breakfast with his parents. He said he wasn’t feeling well. He got up from the table, walked into the living room and collapsed.
He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Ramon Ramos was one of the standouts for a Seton Hall team that came within one point of the NCAA basketball championship eight months ago, and part of Puerto Rico’s Olympic team 15 months ago. He had been eagerly awaiting his first minute in an NBA game, having just been activated Dec. 8 after spending his entire season to date on injured reserve.
Ramon was driving on an interstate 15 miles outside Portland when he lost control of his car Saturday at about 3:15 a.m. The car crossed the median and flipped, rolling over several times. Ramon was thrown from the vehicle, possibly as high as 40 feet in the air, police estimate. He was not wearing a seat belt.
After three hours of neurosurgery, doctors detected clear indication of brain damage. Ramon’s chances of survival were called 50-50 at best.
Because they involved athletes, the stories of these tragedies were placed on the morning sports page. The families don’t care about sports anymore. They don’t care about Christmas, either. They just want their kids back.