There's fun in our little world, too

How to re-introduce myself?

And to explain why I am back in sports, where I have spent at least 30 years of my journalism career?

OK, I want to share two events that perhaps will give you an idea.

They are immensely different, and to most people they would have no connection — but ultimately I hope you’ll see the point I’m trying to make.

The first of these two events actually began way back in 1969, on a sunny afternoon in the Latvian capital of Riga.

An intense 20-year-old man named Eliyahu Rips, feeling his soul torn out by the Soviets’ brutal crushing of dissent in Czechoslovakia, doused his clothes with petrol and set himself on fire.

Rips was not the first to make this spectacular sacrifice to prove a political or social point.

In fact, a Czech protester named Jan Palach has given his life in a ball of fire just three months earlier.

And in 1963, a monk called Thích Quáng Dúc famously captured the world’s attention by setting himself ablaze on a busy Saigon street to protest the persecution of Buddhists in Vietnam.

YES, THERE was obvious drama in such blazing suicidal protests.

However, there was one major difference in these self-immolations across different parts of the world.

Eliyahu Rips survived.

Some passersby spotted him almost immediately and beat the flames off his clothes and skin.

Because of the unusual conclusion to Rips’ protest, he is still alive and has spent years as a math teacher in Israel.

That’s how I happened to hear him doing a radio interview.

I was transfixed by this man, who spoke slowly but clearly in English — which is actually his fifth language.

Rips recalled that his reasoning for what he did all those years ago was crystal clear.

“When I went to make this protest, the fear of Soviet power was so big that it was easier for me to imagine being dead than in their hands,” he said.

Now…

Imagine waking up each morning and feeling so oppressed, frightened, and miserable that you would think setting yourself on fire might be the best way to make a statement.

REMEMBER THAT I mentioned a second event?

Hopefully you’ll understand how this eventually ties together with Eliyahu Rips.

As it happens, I live in Twin Lakes Village.

If you know the area, you’re aware that to reach the Super 1 Foods grocery story in Rathdrum, I have to drive south down Highway 41, make a left for a block up to Highway 53, then turn left again.

And that’s what I was doing one night.

Except that it was a Friday, and Lakeland High — which sits right at that junction on Highway 53 — was hosting a football game.

There were cars backed up in every direction and people streaming here, there, across streets, the whole chaotic picture.

Everyone seemed to be smiling and enjoying themselves.

Now think along with me for a second…

Because I was feeling that this wonderful prep football evening could be, in its own special way, just as meaningful as the fact that people actually set themselves on fire in protests.

Look, we will always have every type of horror in our world.

YET HAVING said all that…

We are also entitled to simple, uncomplicated joys in life.

Sports can and often does fill that gap.

Throughout my career, when I was writing about sports, colleagues sometimes would say: “Why don’t you do something more important with your ability?”

Each time, I would answer: “Hey, I’m entertaining thousands of people every week, and that’s a very cool thing in a world that needs entertaining.”

Do you see, finally, how that interview with Eliyahu Rips and getting caught in traffic prior to a Lakeland football game connected for me?

I want to help give readers a break from the unpleasant world out there — that crashing misery that made Rips willing to die in flames.

Look…

We deserve to have plenty of fun, too.

A game-winning touchdown pass is a neat thing.

That’s why I’m back again in what has been jokingly called the “toy department.”

Fair enough.

Me?

I’m thrilled to be here.

Steve Cameron is a columnist for The Press. “The Cheap Seats” appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Steve’s “Zags Tracker” column on Gonzaga basketball runs on Tuesdays.