Chuck Lebess

 Early in our Junior we were in football practice, and we were told we would be going one-on-one today. That meant I was going to be going full out trying to not be blocked out of the play and to tackle one of our classmates; and send a message. I loved the drill. You have to understand that Coach Parsons always criticized me for not being mean enough. He would say “Do not apologize to the quarterback after you hit him!!”  I actually did that. Today I was going to make it a point to have no friends. Mean Moose had entered the building.  

In this drill the goal of the offensive tackle (OT) is to block the defensive tackle out (DT). I was the DT. The running back just had to get past me. The DT had to stop the running back and hit the running back as hard as possible.  

We began the drill. I am not sure who the OT was, I have been trying to figure it out, but I really do not remember. The running back however I do remember well.  

I saw who was playing against me and was not worried. All I had to do was resist. If the OT pushed you to left, you push back to the right. If he pushed to right you pushed to the left and try to get a clear shot at the Running Back, Chuck Lebess.  

The play began. OT tried to push me towards his left. I maneuvered and was able to push hitting hard to the right. I was able to get rid of whoever it was. I had a clear shot at Lebess.  

Lebess is a good guy. He ran track (hurdles) good running back, surprisingly nice guy but, during this exercise we had no friends. I put my head down. He put his head down. I was going to hit him as hard as it was possible. At this time, you really do not think. You just run forward and hit. I hit him as hard as I could. Apparently, so did he. At least I hope he did. It was such a hard hit that it really hurt. I really do remember the collision. I do not think I had a concussion, but I was worried. He was unscathed.  

 I have never been hit so hard during the years I played football.  That day Chuck Lebess earned my respect as a football player.

Someone’s toughness as exemplified by how hard they hit or how well they played in football games pales in comparison to that measured by how one handles the hard knocks one has been dealt with in life.  After reading our friends comments about Chuck Lebess and how he is doing, I can honestly say that Chuck Lebess is one tough dude.  

-Fight on  

Moose 

Crazy thing called computers.

I have been working with computers for a long time now.  I can remember my first time. 

It was my freshman year in college, at the University of Miami and Fabio told me about how they used computers in his line of work.  Fabio was a business or accounting major.  I am not sure.  I frankly cannot tell the difference.  Fabio asked me if I wanted to go to the place where the computers were at the UM.  I said sure.  I am not talking about the computer facility, I am talking about the classroom building at the UM.  The first thing was connecting to the mainframe.  This was done via a modem connected to the phone.  The phone literally sat on a modem and you would dial the number sand it would connect.  I am not talking about the phone line, I am speaking about the actual phone.  It was a very slow connection, I believe it was a 300 baud which all I knew was that it was the slowest way to communicate with the computer.  It literally asked me if I wanted to play a game?  This later reminded of that movie War games with Mathew Broderick.  The computer did not talk, we just wrote to each other.  The movie was made in 1983.  My experience with Fabio was on or about 1977.  It is amazing how far we have come. 

I was asked if I wanted to play tic tac toe.  I did, and I was hooked. 

I never thought of it as something that would be so useful.  I was just very curious at the time.  I then took a course in the basic computer language (Beginners all purpose symbolic instruction code) and later would expand how much I would use and depend on computers. In that course, as a final project, I made up a program that would play chess with you.  I am being very generous to myself here.  All I did was begin the game when you only had two pieces left.  And your opponent had one piece left.  I had to get the new queen with the pawn.  It worked okay but both players had to know something about chess.  If the defending player just moved away, the player with the pawn would just move back and forth.  He acted as if he was confused.  Oh well.   

As I am sure all of you are aware, I am part of a large family.  My oldest brother, most probably never used a computer.  Nowadays I find that hard to believe.  As one looks at the whole family, all of used computers to varying degrees. The younger members of the family used computers or actually studied computer science or engineering.  I always wondered at the time if I would have finished my career in chemistry if I had the opportunity to work with computers.  I think I would have in the end. I know some colleagues that later studied computer science after chemistry.