By FRED KERBER
Okay, Carter is back. So is the offense. Everybody benefited. The Nets won in Portland. Plan the parade, acceptance speeches. Maybe they’ll even get on TV twice next year.
Know what? For one day, I’m going to try to think about other stuff.
Don’t want to get sappy but this is the 12th time in 13 years – the lockout season was the lone exception — I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving (never missed Christmas, though). While I hope the person who ALWAYS puts an ice show this week in the Meadowlands comes down with boils and impacted molars, there really is a lot to be thankful for.
So while trying to adjust to another time-zone change with some horrible wee-hours television (oh wow, a digital weed-whacker that slices, dices and makes Julienne fries – and only uses 28 AAA batteries), here are some things I’m thankful for:
Above everything, Krissy, Dan and Jonny.
And Burly – actually “Buehrle” – the greatest dog ever.
That I don’t have to watch the Knicks every night. Or any night.
A decrease in Reality TV. I’ll go to my grave being able to say I never watched a single episode of “Survivor” (or had a bumper sticker, for that matter).
Which leads to: new shows like “Chuck,” “Life,” and “Journeyman” to go along with the old staples of “24” (if it ever comes back), “Prison Break”, “Bones”, “Two and a Half Men.” And “Seinfeld” re-runs.
Some of the really nice-guy athletes I dealt with over the years. Magic Johnson, Elton Brand, Ozzie Newsome, Doc Rivers and Sean Casey immediately come to mind.
That I don’t deal with jerks on the Nets: the players accommodate and you don’t need an appointment 7 months in advance or need to travel to Vegas to speak to the team pres.
Dean Koontz and Stephen King (when he’s not too preachy – and yeah, I was a big fan long before they made a movie out of everything he wrote, including his grocery list)
DVDs. Especially on-sale DVDs.
That Dave D. and I found a decent restaurant open in Seattle on Thanksgiving. Something about Chinese take-out or answering to, “Was that regular or extra crispy?” gets me out of the holiday mood, you know?
Any flight that takes off/lands within an hour of the estimated times.
That I know I watch far too many movies for any grown adult – and don’t care.
Marriott points.
Krissy’s cooking.
The four-square feet of space in IZOD Center that doesn’t have a corporate logo. I think about that a lot in the Vonage Press Room as I chew my Wrigley’s Big Red gum while waiting for the Dr. Scholl’s Athlete’s Foot Powder Opening Tip and the Goodyear All-Weather, All-Terrain, Buy-Three-Get-One-Free Radials Time Out.
Covering the Yankees-Indians ALDS with George, Joel and two Mikes of the Post. Nice to see teamwork is still alive in this business.
Exit row aisle seats.
The original “The In-Laws.”
There are no speed bumps on my block.
That my sons played high school baseball in New Jersey before the parochial schools – sorry, it’s now “non-public” – turned high school athletics into scandalous swill, placing games at Triple A-caliber competition in all sports. Rumor says “non-public” schools won the Eastern League and the CBA this year.
Loyal Post readers. There are bills, you know.
Almost anything with Sean Connery – except “The Avengers,” on my top 10 list of the worst movies ever made.
“The Avengers” TV show – with Emma Peel, of course.
Seeing the Alamo in San Antonio (big history buff).
Flight attendants who don’t wake me up to ask if I’d like a beverage or to remind me that in the unlikely event of a water landing, my seat cushion doubles as a flotation device.
That I no longer work for the moron sports editor who, on the day my father suffered what would prove to be a fatal heart attack years ago, asked me to write an early story on the Mets before I went to the hospital.
That I covered cops for seven-plus years which sort of puts all these games in perspective.
That the number of twits who flooded “Holsten’s” in my neighborhood demanding “to sit where Tony Soprano had onion rings” has died down. Somewhat.
Ketchup in bottles and not foil packets you have to bite open.
I go to Portland once a year.
I only have to go to Sacramento once a year.
And in honor of over-indulging on Thanksgiving:
Movie Quote of the Day – John Vernon (Dean Wormer): “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.” – “Animal House”