Warmedup Leftovers

   That was some WNBA semi-final last Tuesday. The Phoenix Mercury dismissed the defending league champion Minnesota Lynx 96 to 78, the 18 point margin truly reflecting the difference between the two teams, at least that night.

   The pre-game whoop was billed as Diana Taurasi, of the Mercury vs Maya Moore, the go-to scorer of the Lynx, and  MVP of the regular  season. Taurasi is a former MVP, the steely-eyed captain of her team, and likely the best player in the league. Both are Olympians, both have starred for team USA in international competition in off-Olympic years, and each has keyed two WNBA Champions; Taurasi and the Mercury in 2007 and 2009,and Moore and the Lynx in 2011 and 2013. Both were college basketball All-Americans at U-Conn, the Duke of the distaff side.

   In the Tuesday showdown , it was Taurasi hands-down. She led a luminous cast that includes Penny Taylor, a 6'1" dynamo, DeWanna Bonner,6'4" and silky smooth, Candice Dupree,6'2" and a force at both ends of the court.   And there is Brittney Griner, who has the talent to become a player of signature stature in WNBA annals.

   Lynx-wise, Moore was brilliantly defended by Phoenix, and the redoubtable Lindsay Whalen's noble effort just wasn't enough.  Veteran Simone Augustus played at her customary furious clip, but beyond that, the Lynx could in no-wise match up.  Echoing the old Brooklyn Dodger hope, Lynx Coach Reeve's unsurprising valedictory was, in effect, "wait 'til next year."

   Watching the 6'8" Brittney Griner whets the appetite. In only her second year in the pros, Ms Griner is already a game changer. She closes the lane, which is now called the paint, forcing the pick and rollers to roll to the corners only. She gives them no path to the basket for a layup and precious little room for pullup jumpers, which, even when launched, are apt to be blocked and swatted away.
   She goes either way, right or left, shoots with either hand, feeds from the post, and plays with fierce determination.

    In the semis, her play recalled the impact of George Mikan back in the early days of the NBA. Teamed with Jim Pollard of the original Lakers, Mikan blazed the trail for big men in basketball, just as the combination of Joe Lapchick and Nat Holman did for the Original Celtics a couple of generations before.

    In a league filled with stars, we now have the pleasure of seeing Brittney Griner's pro career blossom to a unique and uniquely inspirational status.
    Go Brittney.  Hooray for Title 9.
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   Axiomatic parental advice used to admonish adolescents and teens that keeping anything secret meant to not  put anything secret on paper. To not write secrets down.  And, although kids seemingly do not write much of anything  these days, the advice still holds.

   So the flap over images, printable on paper, of baseball's Justin Verlander and model Kate Upton in the nude, were likely not to be regarded as secrets at all. Both are in professions that require public display.

    Of course, images of icons and lesser celebrities in dishabille have been with us at least since the statue of Venus, Goddess of Love, was created in ancient Greece. The intent has always been to record beauty, which prompts concurrent responses of envy and desire.
 
 If a poll of contemporary images of this nature were taken, the vote here would be for Ava Gardner's starring role in the 1948 movie, "One Touch of Venus."  Ava remains the most stunning example of feminine pulchritude in memory.  Throughout the movie, she was fully clothed.   If two choices were allowed, the second would be Katarina Witt, the German ice skater's layout in Playboy, in which the lovely Katarina poses while fully unclothed, and for which she was undoubtedly handsomely recompensed.

   In the age of digital cameras, nudity abounds for anyone inclined to pose, not just celebrities such as Verlander and Upton, and social media provide the galleries for display. We're talking exhibitionism here, with no reference to the sex trade.

    When the nude news first broke, I read about it in the sports page.  Perhaps oddly, the exhibition aspect called to mind mischief from the days of my adolescence.

    In the little town in which I grew up, there was a lover's lane, with a quite spectacular view of the broad river that ran below.

     Big boys and girls would park in cars there, but likely wasted little time looking out the window.
     Adolescent boys often lurked in the woods not more than 30 yards away, and when the car stopped and its lights went off, the game was on, With the occupants of the car, and with the lurking boys, as well. 

     The boys called their game, "Guffer Bouncing." It didn't actually start until the Registered Letter version of Post Office began inside the car. When the car started to buck a little and rock a bit up and down and  side to side, the gang swung into action.

     The boldest of them jumped up on the rear bumper and bounced like crazy, shouting and banging on the roof, while the more timid hung back, ready to run, while hollering, "Guffers, Guffers!" 
 
  Bumper jumps numbered as few as three and never more than five before the back-seat swain rose to the defense. By that time the intruders had disappeared into the woods and down the hill, laughing and shouting as they ran.

     The next day, a few of the older mischief makers would usually return to the scene to look for evidence of the previous evening's activity, and usually found it on the ground next to where the car was parked.

      As far as is known, no  effort was made to identify nor exact retribution from any of the Guffer Bouncers, and it occurs to me at this late date that the guys who got bounced really didn't mind. 

     Lusty young males have always basked in their successes, and presumed successes, in matters of romance. At one time, in one small town, Guffer Bouncers were their chroniclers.  Today it's digital cameras.

    Doesn't seem as though they would be as much fun.
                                                                  ***
     
Children of many generations were seriously and repeatedly warned by their parents not to play with guns.

    In Arizona not so long ago, The parents of a nine-year old girl took their daughter to a range specifically so that she could play with an Uzi, plus other items in a white man's arsenal.

     The results: one person dead; a little girl, perhaps scarred for life; a de-sensitized society, and a pair of perhaps relentlessly oblivious parents.