The washed-up ball player who’d kicked around the Detroit Tigers’ farm system for a few years almost immediately dubbed me “The Ayatollah” the first day he settled down in the newsroom.
Greg Kuhl has been dead a few years now, the heart that propelled him into an early retiree and a full-time distance runner in Calgary, pretty much burst one day while he was doing what he loved.
Distance running and television and his dog, Blue, were the loves of his life. It was not without sadness. He never got his cup of coffee in the bigs and his wife not only divorced him, she took his television. When he called me to tell me of his divorce, it was the TV he lamented most.
He got over all that, but I don’t think he ever got over the
death of his beloved dog, Blue, who shared his modest home in Calgary, Canada,
where he watched TV when he wasn’t on his regular string of distance running
competitions.
I couldn’t help but think of Greg early Saturday when the
bombs and missiles began falling on Iran in what turned out to be a successful
(if one can term anything that causes death “successful”) attempt at taking
down the Ayatollah Khamenei a
bloodthirsty dictator and religious leader (vocations generally not linked
except in Iran and perhaps America’s Deep South.)
This is not a political post. Most people know where I stand
politically, but I often am difficult to pin down.
I do hope this war, that not only killed a batch of vile and
evil Iranian leaders but also a schoolhouse filled with elementary students,
according to reports, does not last long.
I worry about innocent civilians and even more worry about
our military personnel, who are following orders. Their valor cannot be questioned.
Well, that’s about all the politics I have for you today. I
was talking about Greg Kuhl, who entered The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle
newsroom sometime just after the first Iran crisis that was caused by a
different Ayatollah.
Just as ruthless, Ayatollah Khomeini led the Islamic revolution
that got rid of the shah and ended the America-loving attitude of that country,
instead labeling us evil incarnate.
I know that’s a simple way to explain it, but this isn’t
history. You know, it’s just me.
Well, this tale is about Greg Kuhl, whose ambitions had been
to be a Major League ball player after his years as a Western Kentucky
University Hilltopper.
Tigers snatched him up. Eventually they broke his heart, so
he followed his other passion, journalism.
Almost as soon as the then-sports editor (me) introduced
myself to Greg, he – having noticed that I was the unofficial leader of the
newsroom – noticed the similarity in syllables of the names of Khomeini and
Ghianni.
“The Ayatollah!” he’d say. No one else called me that, and
most of the time he just called me “Tim,” but occasionally he’d slip in an “the
Ayatollah told me to do this….” when explaining his professional and personal
choices.
One thing the Ayatollah Ghianni did was urge Greg on when he
went to cover a Klan rally near Trice’s Landing, a park which later gained a
sexual scandal reputation. That is long ago now.
And the paper never ran the Klan story, thanks to the city
editor and the editor (not me), a lifer at the newspaper from Southern Kentucky.
I think by then I’d gained enough newsroom authority and
perhaps even a promotion, and I argued for Greg’s story. The paper didn’t want
to publicize the Klan’s presence in Clarksville. Bad for Chamber’s attempt to
woo industry, I suppose.
Remember I’m just spitting this out, so some of it may be
jumbled due to time.
Anyway, I did stay in Clarksville and became associate
editor and front-page columnist. Greg moved on to Jackson, Mississippi, where
he got married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout and divorced in a time of
personal agony. He went on to Kansas City to work at the newspaper there.
After his parents died, he retired and moved to Calgary, where
he practiced his favorite pastime of distance running fulltime. He even gave up
his vegetarianism and his favorite smoke for his running.
Years later, as I noted, he died.
That hit hard. I had enjoyed our friendship, even though it
was long-distance or digital the last few years of his life.
And while I’d never let anyone else call me “The Ayatollah,”
when Greg did it made me smile.
Saturday, as the details of the attack and the death of the
evil Ayatollah were announced, I was not surprised, but not happy. I worried
about the innocents on both sides who were being “OBLITERATED” by the rain of
missiles and bombs.
I couldn’t help but think of Greg, though, during all the “Ayatollah”
talk.
I thought about the times he visited Clarksville and stayed
in my apartment or house and cheerfully called me “The Ayatollah.”
And then I thought of my 30th birthday party, one
that I shared with my best buddy, Jerry Manley.
Greg came up from Jackson for the party. And I believe he
brought his wife, who I thought seemed rather nice in those months before she stole
his TV and perhaps his heart.
The party was legendary, perhaps the best ever. Most of the
crowd of newsroom types began leaving around midnight or 1 a.m.
Others -- mainly Greg, a young Rob Dollar (a rookie reporter
who has become my great pal and moviemaking and writing partner for life),
perhaps John Staed (if his wife let him), Jerry and a couple of more – stuck around
to sing and dance to music Jerry and I had recorded on 8-track for the
celebration.
"Eleanor Rigby" ... "Satisfaction" ... "Revolution" ... "Helter Skelter" ... "Aqualung" .... you get it....
Perhaps the greatest memory of that night came around 3 a.m.,
when Edwin Starr’s “War” turned up on my tape. Everybody was singing and
dancing around arm-in-arm. Kicking our legs up and stomping down.
Sometime in that wild dancing, I introduced my “lyrics,” a
version that had worked at beer parties when Jocko and I reigned at Iowa State
University during the heat of the Vietnam War.
Edwin’s version is “War, huh, good Gawd y’all, what is it
good for? Absolutely nothin.’’’
My little amendment to that song was that I replaced “nothin’’’
with “horse shit.”
Sing it, sing it again.
So, as a news junkie, I attentively watched the news
coverage Saturday.
But, almost every time they mentioned the dead Ayatollah, a
scene played in my head.
Greg was right there, singing and kicking and stomping along as we sang “War. Huh, good Gawd y’all, what is it good for? ….”
We all stomped our feet to the floor as Greg’s voice rang
perhaps the hardest:
“Absolutely HORSE SHIT.”
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