Play ball, postseason style!

(from Bobby)

Well, surprise, surprise ... the Rangers aren't in the playoffs. Again.

So, here's who I'm rooting for:

DIVISION SERIES


-- Red Sox over the Angels. After all those years of agony, give the Bosox fans a little something more to cheer about. Plus, Brady and I just visited Fenway, so I'm feeling the vibe. And, yes, the Angels are the Rangers' division rival, so there in no love lost there.


-- Phillies over the Brewers. Tough call here, but I was in Philadelpia last year enjoying some time with some fine Phillies fans who suffered through a disappointing playoff performance. The Brewers have waited this long. Make them wait another year or 10 or 20.


-- Cubs over the Dodgers. Gotta get the goat off the Cubbies' backs eventually. I could feel real good about the Cubs going all the way.







-- Rays over the Twins/White Sox winner. Again, gotta go with the team that has never won before. A real feel-good story here. If the Twins are in it, won't be sad if they win because bench coach Steve Liddle is a great, friendly guy with his priorities in the right place.

LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES




-- Rays over the Red Sox. Going with the underdog, even though the underdog won the division.





-- Cubs over the Phillies. Going with the longtime losers and their long-suffering fans.






WORLD SERIES


-- Cubs over the Rays. Let's knock history on its back again. The Red Sox got their championship rings. Now, it's the Cubs' turn. But you can't go wrong with the winner either way if this ends up being the matchup.



What about you? Who are you rooting for?

When whoever's in New England ...

(from Bobby)

Brady and I were blessed this past weekend to travel 1,800-plus miles to attend the annual men's retreat at Gander Brook Christian Camp in Raymond, Maine.

The trip was closer to 2,000 miles if you consider that we flew from Oklahoma City to Houston to catch our first connecting flight Thursday morning, then on to Newark, N.J., finally to Manchester, N.H., where we picked up our rental car and drove about two hours to the camp. (We had a much more direct route -- with just one stop, in Detroit -- on the way home Sunday afternoon.)

We met some awesome Christian men (and women), including two folks that I have known by e-mail for quite a while: Charlie Harrison, minister of the Brunswick, Maine, church, who is pictured below with me, and Park Linscomb, minister of the Manchester, N.H., church, who is pictured with his wife, Linda, after worship Sunday morning.

The weather at night was in the 30s. Fall is my favorite time of year, so I loved leaving the summer temperatures of Oklahoma and finding myself in the midst of an overnight frost. The Gander Brook folks put Brady and me in the director's cabin, so we had our own bathroom and even wireless Internet access -- so much for roughing it!

There was no heater, though, so I slept in my hooded sweatshirt. But I loved it. Monte Cox from Harding was the speaker for the retreat and did a wonderful job. By Friday, the long day on Thursday had caught up to Brady, I think. He dozed off as we sang "Anywhere with Jesus, I can go to sleep..." that afternoon. I had to chuckle.

This was my first time ever in Maine and New Hampshire -- as well as Rhode Island, where Brady and I enjoyed dinner Saturday night with Bruce Bates, minister of the Blackstone Valley church in Cumberland, R.I., and his wife, Janet, and 9-year-old daughter, Annie.

And, of course, we just had to take time Saturday afternoon to tour Fenway Park in Boston. :)

I'm writing a story about Gander Brook and what such a camp means to the mainly small congregations of New England. You can sure be that I'll mention the moose on the wall prominently!

Seven years after 9/11

(from Bobby)

At the time of 9/11, I was the religion editor for The Daily Oklahoman and wrote a weekly column for the religion section cover. This is the column that I wrote that week. With a bit more wisdom at age 40, I don't think that I'd write the same kind of self-aggrandizing piece today -- hopefully, I'd focus more on the real victims. But this is where I was at 33.

Tragedies leave none unchanged
The Daily Oklahoman - September 15, 2001
Author: Bobby Ross Jr .
I am a hard-nosed newspaperman. Therefore, tragedies do not affect me.

I can write about human suffering and death and go about my life unchanged.

When a single mom's federal office building explodes, I can interview two little boys who return home to an empty apartment. I can record their memories without shedding tears.

When tornadoes cut a deadly swath across our state, I can drive in the dark in the direction of the ambulance lights. I can scribble feverishly and feel no emotion as a father says of the daughter, grandson and friend he rushed to the hospital, "All I know is they were in the house that's gone."

And yes, when hijacked airplanes crash into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when thousands of my fellow Americans die for absolutely no reason, I can operate on journalistic adrenaline.

I can call my friend Gary Woodbridge, whose wife, Ronota, died in the 1995 bombing, and beg him to tell me how he's feeling. I can go to prayer services and write compelling stories about prayer without letting down my guard long enough to pray myself.

I'm a hard-nosed newspaperman.

Therefore, tragedies do not affect me.

So why, I wonder, do I raise my voice and snap at a co-worker who stops by my desk Tuesday to ask an innocent question?

So why, I wonder, do I lose my temper over a trivial matter and fire off an angry e-mail to my boss Wednesday?

So why, I wonder, do I lie awake in the early morning hours of Wednesday and Thursday, staring at the horrible destruction, afraid to turn off the television for fear that I might miss something?

On Thursday, I wake up feeling a little better - numb but not so bitter or angry.

"I'm sorry I haven't been here even when I've been here," I tell my wife.

She nods in understanding, but concern rests heavy on her face.

"That's OK. I just don't need you to go into your own little zone for months like you did the last time," she says, obviously referring to the aftermath of the 1995 bombing. "We've got three kids now instead of just one."

Huh?

Her comment surprises me. I never realized the bombing affected me that greatly. In fact, I did not even cry until the second anniversary - the first major event related to that tragedy that I watched on television instead of joining my newsroom family in covering.

I'm a hard-nosed newspaperman, but I guess I'm also human. Believe it or not, that's a refreshing discovery to make.

Tragedies do affect me.

They affect all of us.

May God be with us and may God bless America.

Religion Editor Bobby Ross Jr . can be reached by e-mail at rross@oklahoman.com or by calling 475-3480.
Edition: CITY
Section: OKLAHOMA RELIGION
Page: 1-B
Column: SOUL SEARCHING
Index Terms: TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICA
Record Number: 2172424
Copyright 2001 Oklahoma Publishing Company

Five really cool songs on my iPod

(from Bobby)

Five really cool faith songs (country version)
1. Angels in Waiting (Tammy Cochran)
2. Baptism (Kenny Chesney with Randy Travis)
3. Bless the Broken Road (Rascal Flatts)
4. Believe (Brooks & Dunn)
5. When I Get Where I’m Going (Brad Paisley with Dolly Parton)

Five really cool faith songs (contemporary Christian version)
1. King (Audio Adrenaline)
2. Who Am I (Casting Crowns)
3. Homesick (MercyMe)
4. What If (Nichole Nordeman)
5. Letters from War (Mark Schultz)

Five really cool new(er) songs on my iPod
1. Life in a Northern Town (Sugarland, Little Big Town and Jake Owen)
2. Johnny & June (Heidi Newfield)
3. Waitin’ on a Woman (Brad Paisley)
4. Stealing Cinderella (Chuck Wicks)
5. I Saw God Today (George Strait)

Five really cool songs that they can play at my funeral (a cappella, of course)
1. A Little Bluer Than That (Alan Jackson) (need to get the handful of folks there in the proper mood. LOL)
2. The Dance (Garth Brooks)
3. Farther Along (Brad Paisley)
4. East to West (Casting Crowns)
5. My God and I (Harding University Concert Choir)

Five really cool songs that make me think of my little girl (I won’t embarrass my boys with a similar list!)
1. Cinderella (Steven Curtis Chapman)
2. Stealing Cinderella (Chuck Wicks)
3. I Loved Her First (Heartland)
4. Our Song (Taylor Swift) (the two of us - Kendall and I, that is - make an awesome duet singing this at full volume!)
5. You’re Gonna Miss This (Trace Adkins)

Five really cool Statler Brothers songs
1. The Class of ’57
2. Charlotte’s Web
3. I Was There
4. (I’ll Even Love You) Better Than I Did
5. The Official Historian on Shirley Jean Berrell

Five really cool Brad Paisley songs
1. Whiskey Lullaby (with Alison Krauss)
2. Online
3. Celebrity
4. Letter to Me
5. I’m Still a Guy

Five more really cool Brad Paisley songs
6. Waitin’ on a Woman
7. Famous People
8. He Didn’t Have To Be
9. Famous People
10. The Cigar Song

Five really cool Martina McBride songs
1. Concrete Angel
2. Blessed
3. She’s a Butterfly
4. Anyway
5. Wearing White

Five really cool relatively obscure songs (not big radio hits)
1. I Ain't In Checotah Anymore (Carrie Underwood)
2. The Mind of John J. Blanchard (Tommy Shane Steiner)
3. Blame It On Me (Lee Ann Womack)
4. Road Less Traveled (George Strait)
5. White Trash Wedding (Dixie Chicks)

Five really cool Kenny Chesney songs
1. Please Come To Boston
2. Back Where I Come From
3. How Forever Feels
4. Live Those Songs
5. She’s A Big Star

Five really cool Sara Evans songs
1. I Learned That From You
2. Time Won’t Tell
3. No Place That Far (with Vince Gill)
4. Otis Redding
5. Cheatin’

Five more really cool Sara Evans songs
6. Supernatural
7. The Secrets That We Keep
8. Bible Song
9. Born to Fly
10. Backseat of a Greyhound Bus

Five really cool Taylor Swift songs (Kendall is a big Taylor Swift fan, as I mentioned before … and so is Dad)
1. Our Song
2. Should’ve Said No
3. Tim McGraw
4. Picture To Burn
5. Teardrops On My Guitar

Five really cool Tim McGraw songs
1. Angry All The Time
2. The Cowboy in Me
3. My Next Thirty Years (I used to be close enough to 30 to enjoy this song much more)
4. Do You Want Fries With That
5. Some Things Never Change

Five really cool songs by “American Idol” alums
1. The Time of My Life (David Cook)
2. A Different World (Bucky Covington)
3. Jesus, Take The Wheel (Carrie Underwood)
4. This Is The Night (Clay Aiken)
5. 8th World Wonder (Kimberly Locke)

Five really cool songs that remind me of the 1980s
1. I Found Someone (Cher)
2. Crazy for You (Madonna)
3. Kokomo (Beach Boys)
4. Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler)
5. Friends (Michael W. Smith)

Five really cool classic country songs
1. Harper Valley P.T.A. (Jeannie C. Riley)
2. Big Bad John (Jimmy Dean)
3. Okie From Muskogee (Merle Haggard)
4. Hello Darlin’ (Conway Twitty)
5. Song of the South (Alabama)

Five more really cool songs that I didn’t mention already
1. El Cerritto Place (Charlie Robison)
2. If You Leave Me Now (Chicago)
3. Paint Me A Birmingham (Tracy Lawrence)
4. The Glory of Love (Peter Cetera)
5. By Surprise (Joy Williams)