CHAPTER SIXTY Ever since my teen years, I have been fascinated by heroic people and heroic acts and been saddened by unfortunate and tragic stories. By the time I was thirty, my curiosity and interest in other people’s stories had taken me to every section of Barnes & Noble and all over the Internet. Over the years, I have found myself inspired to read about the Hare Krishna faith by George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord,” one of my favorite songs since seventh grade; the work of Christopher Hitchens; professor Randy Pausch and his book The Last Lecture; Anne Frank; Berc Keresteciyan (the person who is believed to have saved Ataturk’s life); the tragic murders of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till and seven-year-old Adam Walsh; and many other subjects and people.
I regularly spend time reading about the lives of people I find interesting. I want to know about them, their background, their journey... The image of Mesut Hancer holding the hand of his dead fifteen-year-old daughter Irmak, crushed by a building after the 7.8 earthquake in southeastern Turkey in February 2023 is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Another image that I find touching and tragic is the photo of the little boy named Alan Kurdi lying drowned on his stomach on a Turkish beach. As a soldier takes him in his arms, the way he is unable to look at the little boy as he carries his lifeless body away from the waves will also stay with me.
I often think about a local boy named Donovan Maldonado who was hit by a car while riding his bicycle in the summer of 2012, when he was just seven. Every time I drive down Shepherd Avenue, I look at the cross placed in his memory and think of him kicking a soccer ball in laughter and joy. Had he lived, he would have been eighteen this year.
I think, too, about the bicyclist Paul Moore who was hit near Woodward Park, leaving behind a wife and a son. I read that he was an avid rider and a levelheaded, caring, and funny person.
It had to be early or mid-2005 when I first heard about Patrick Daniel Tillman and immediately knew I had to learn his story. Pat was a professional football player for the Arizona Cardinals in the NFL. After the 9-11 attacks, he decided to leave his NFL career and joined the Army. He became a Ranger, along with his brother, Kevin, who gave up his professional baseball career. Pat was killed in Afghanistan in April 2004 in what they called a friendly fire (being shot from ten yards away raises a lot of questions), and I was deeply touched by his story. I learned that he was a very humble and brave person both on and off the field, who did what he believed was right despite obstacles. He was not the type of person to follow or join the masses just for the sake of safety and protection or for any personal gain. I felt the world would be a better place if we had more people like him, so in 2005, I decided to honor him by placing his name, along with his college jersey number 42 and NFL number 40, his date of birth and death, his place of birth, and where he died on the back window of my truck that I had bought in Wichita, Kansas.
Many years ago, I read Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, and Tillman’s mom’s book Boots on the Ground by Dusk is one I still plan on reading. Pat left a career most people could only dream of for things that were important to him and he believed in. I can very much relate to his enjoyment of good times spent around good friends and loved ones. I can also relate to his noble search for things that matter beyond a full stomach and a roof over one’s head. He was after the true meaning of life. So here is me raising a pint of Guinness for Pat. Your legacy lives on, and you will never be forgotten, brother.
About ten years ago, I read an article about Peter Norman, who was considered to be one of the fastest runners Australia had ever produced. But after the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City he was largely forgotten, because of the support he displayed for the American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos as they stood on the podium to receive their first- and third-place medals in the 200-meter race. Norman finished second against the two American favorites, surprising many observers.
Smith and Carlos had planned on raising awareness for the inequalities and injustices black people faced in those days, by removing their shoes and raising their fists in black gloves. Carlos, however, had forgotten his gloves, so Norman suggested he wear one of Smith’s. That’s why Smith and Carlos raised their opposite arms on the podium that day. Norman displayed his support by wearing an OPHR (Olympic Project for Human Rights) badge. I read about what took place and who these three athletes were for weeks. There was a time I even considered driving to Southern California to meet Smith and shake his hand, but I never gathered the courage to make the trip.
When those Summer Olympics took place, in October 1968 in Mexico City, it had only been a few months since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Racism was very much alive and real in America. Smith and Carlos paid a high price for their salute; both were banned from the Olympics for life. Norman, despite being a five-time champion and the fastest 200-meter runner in Australia, would not be called for the 1972 Munich Olympics in Germany. Norman’s 20.06-second record of 200 meters is unbeaten in Australia to this day. The world lost Peter Norman in 2006 at the age of sixty-four, and Smith and Carlos were both pallbearers at his funeral. My heart also goes out to the Mexican protesters who lost their lives prior to the Olympics in Mexico City while standing up against poverty.
People called Andres Escobar “The Gentleman of Football.” He was a defender for the Colombian national soccer team in 1994, a year when Colombia was one of the favorites to win the World Cup, with a team stacked with talent. But the country also had a big drug problem in those days, and there was a lot of pressure on the team because of the large bets placed on the matches; their families were even threatened.
After losing to Romania 3-1 in the first game of the group stage, Colombia desperately needed a win against the US. In minute thirty-five, Andres Escobar accidentally deflected a cross into his own goal. If you are dealing with a fast cross as a defender where you can barely reach by stretching your leg, you don’t have a lot of control of where the ball will go. But your job as a defender is to make contact with the ball and interrupt the play, especially in Andres’s situation, where an opposing player was right behind him.
Having played soccer since childhood, I understood instantly what Andres had attempted. It is a very common situation and I know any defender would have done what he did. You have a ball being crossed or shot into the penalty box that is delivered with pace. It is a bit out of reach, so you stretch your leg out in an attempt to stop or deflect the ball from reaching its target, which in this case was the US player right behind Andres. If he didn’t make that contact with the ball, the US player would most likely have scored a goal. Colombia lost the game 2-1, and the team was eliminated from the World Cup. When Escobar returned to Colombia a few days later, he was murdered. I followed Andres Escobar’s story closely and remember watching an ESPN documentary called 30 for 30: The Two Escobars. It was heartbreaking to see what the country was going through. I felt very sad that an honest mistake in a sports event had cost a human life. I have a couple of shirts of Andres Escobar I wear regularly. RIP, big buddy!
Naim Suleymanoglu stood just four feet, ten inches tall and was one of the very few people to ever lift three times his own body weight. He was considered the strongest “pound-for pound” weightlifter ever in the history of weightlifting, and people called him “Pocket Hercules.” Having faced much prejudice as Turks living in Bulgaria, his family decided to escape to Turkey along with thousands of other Turkish families. I was working behind the bar at Coyote Creek in Sonora when Naim faced Valerios Leonidis of Greece in the finals of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, on live television. These two superhumans were taking turns breaking world records, one after another. They had broken three world records in just over five minutes. When Valerios failed at his final lift, Naim became the gold medalist. I was greatly moved when I found out years later about the conversation that took place between the two rivals and friends before the awards ceremony. Valerios said to Naim “Naim, you’re the best.” Naim responded “No, Valerios, we’re both the best.”
Naim passed away at the age of fifty, on November 18, 2017. He had set forty-six world records in his life. I saw a photo in the news of Valerios attending his funeral and kissing Naim’s coffin, which was wrapped in a Turkish flag. That photo brought tears into my eyes in its symbolic destruction of the historical tensions between the two countries, even if it was only for a brief moment. I have never met Valerios, but it seems like the world could use more people like him.
I felt great joy when Greece was the first country to help Turkey within hours of a devastating earthquake that took thousands of lives in 1999. Less than a month later, another earthquake hit Greece. This time, it was Turkey’s turn to send help to her neighbor in need. I wish it didn’t take disasters the size of earthquakes to make us realize that we’re all human and that there is no reason for us not to get along and support one another, considering all the resources available and the inventions and the discoveries we have made during this journey we call life.
I hope to visit the beautiful country of Greece someday, especially the island of Crete and do the sirtaki dance on the beach, where Anthony Quinn danced to one of my favorite songs by Mikis Theodorakis.
In the summer of 2003, we had just closed the deal on our first house and were getting ready to move out of our apartment on Saybrook Drive in Fresno. Melissa and I were in front of our TV on June 26, watching the live soccer match between Cameroon and Colombia in the FIFA Confederations Cup. I will never forget the Cameroonian player Marc-Vivien Foe collapsing on the field right in front of our eyes. Melissa and I were crying in shock. Despite all efforts, Foe was gone at the age of twenty-eight due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Years ago I decided to get a custom T-shirt made with his name and his number 17 that I often wear in his honor.
I have enjoyed sharing music with people ever since my teen years, when I worked at discos and got to select songs to entertain people. It gave me great joy to be able to contribute to other people’s happiness and watch them dance to their favorite song or discover a song they had never heard before. Many of my friends and I have introduced many songs to each other throughout the years. Music is great therapy for millions of people around the world.
As a teen in Turkey before I moved to America, I worked with friends who had a great talent for mixing records, something I never got good at. With two record players in front of them, they could make the transition from one song to the next so smoothly that most wouldn’t notice. I still remember the excitement and the emotions of people as they danced by the Aegean Sea while we played the popular songs of the ’80s and classics by ABBA and Boney M. Not everyone would dance, however, and some would just sit on a stool and find refuge in their drink as they fell deep into thought, often with a cigarette between their fingers. I always wondered what troubles they had. Were they or someone they knew ill? Were they mourning the passing of a loved one? Were they going through a divorce? Were they worrying about how to come up with rent money for the next month?
As much as I love music, my friends, especially my musician friends, find it surprising that to this day I don’t play an instrument. Just as surprising was the fact that until a few years ago, I didn’t own a pair of quality speakers. That was until one day almost ten years ago when I went out with my friend and neighbor John and came back to his place to have a couple of cold ones. “Hard Habit to Break” by Chicago had never sounded the way I heard it that night. I can’t remember what speakers he had, but I recall hearing just about every instrument and sound precisely through his speakers and subwoofer. It was loud, it was clear, and it was amazing.
After that night, I made up my mind that I had to get a pair of quality speakers, since there was a whole other level of experience to be felt while listening to music at home. So, I went and got myself a pair of Klipsch RP-280F tower speakers. Ever since, music has never sounded the same.
I developed an interest in the band Santana in the early ’90s. The songs “Samba Pa Ti” and “Europa” were very important to me during my difficult days in Sonora. Carlos Santana is not only one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of all time but is also an amazing human being. My respect for this caring and thoughtful musician increased a few years ago after I found out about his Milagro Foundation, which was created to support under-resourced children and youth.
A while back I came across a story about Carlos Santana giving free front-row tickets to a few poor kids he met in Istanbul in June 1990, who made a living shining shoes. Come the concert time, the kids had a hard time passing security to get into the concert, and their front-row seats were taken by prominent politicians and their families. Once Santana found out, he wouldn’t start playing until those families were removed and the kids were in their seats.
As I get older, I find myself having even greater appreciation for songs I have been listening to for years. I am able to better understand the talent, the creativity, and the wisdom these songs possess. I am often amazed how such masterpieces were written and produced by talented musicians at such a young age.
Dire Straits’ “Single-Handed Sailor,” artfully written by Mark Knopfler, is one of these songs. It is from one of my favorite albums, Communique, which came out in 1979. I have been enjoying this album ever since the mid-’80s. A few years ago I decided to research the meaning behind the lyrics. I believe the song was inspired by the British sailor Sir Francis Chichester, who sailed single-handed around the world by the clipper route in nine months and one day in 1966. What an amazing accomplishment at the age of sixty-four! Lyrical references such as “Gypsy Moth,” “College of War,” and “Cutty Sark” finally all make more sense to me. And the guitar solo by Mark Knopfler, from 2:49 to the end, is a joy to listen to. These stories are only a fraction of what I have become aware of, due to my interest in tragedies and inspiring stories from all around the world. While I read about people from all walks of life and all ages, I am especially touched by the loss of young life. There is something particularly sad about children and young people losing their lives. It is the very definition of unfairness.
Tragic events make me very sad and often leave me confused. But having awareness of these things also helps me put life into perspective. They make me realize that horrible people exist and commit evil acts, and accidents happen, and that life can be cut short at any moment, as we humans are extremely fragile beings. Reading about other people’s tragedies and what their families have gone through helps me understand how precious life is. As scary as these stories are, they help me develop a braver outlook. Such stories make my problems seem smaller and make me care less about the unimportant things that often occupy my mind. They help me focus on what’s truly important. They reorganize my problems in my head, from the most important to the least. They help me handle the injustices, the ordeals, and the misunderstandings we all face in a more composed way.
Comments