A stunning goal in soccer

On a night when sleep eludes me, I came across this amazing goal during a soccer match earlier this year. Even if you don't care much about "football" - and many Americans don't - you have to marvel at this shot.

Brightman and Bocelli

I'm an unabashed fan of Sarah Brightman, and I've been known to sing along with Andrea Bocelli (much to the chagrin of my neighbors). This song will let you know why. It sends chills every time I hear it.

The magic of lights on a Christmas tree

I'm not sure why, but I've always loved a brightly lit Christmas tree.

Maybe it's because the creation symbolizes joy - the joy of the Christ child's birth, or the joy that comes when the presents under the tree are opened, or the joy of loved ones gathering for the holiday the tree helps symbolize.

Maybe it's the variety of colors that the lights typically offer, standing out particularly vividly in a darkened room.

Or maybe my special affection has its roots in my childhood, when I came to love seeing a lit-up Christmas tree in a darkened room after coming in from an active - often cold - day at school or outside. It was so peaceful, so calming, so...regal, almost.

I thought that even though our trees were never ostentatious or 'over the top', so to speak - at least compared to many trees I've seen since then. It's entirely possible to do "too much" to a tree, to where it's a garish avalanche of images assaulting the eyes.

The best Christmas trees to me, in fact, have an air of simplicity about them: a nice mix of lights, ornaments and icicles, plus those touches that personalize the tree for the family using it: memento photos or ornaments, heirloom tree-toppers, perhaps.

However you decorate your tree, make it a delight for the eyes - and the memories.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

A Sunday morning in Hawaii

Those old enough to remember anything about that first Sunday
in December in 1941 are well into their 70s now. The number of men and women who survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is dwindling rapidly, their eyesight and hearing - and, I fear, our collective memory - fading.

I was captivated by these images - some from captured Japanese military - of that surprise attack that thrust America into World War II. They are from the Boston Globe, and you can see the entire slideshow by clicking on the link below.





Glimpses from a day of infamy


I've interviewed numerous Pearl Harbor survivors, and their eyes tell stories they can never form into words. When the movie "Pearl Harbor" (starring Kate Beckinsale and Ben Affleck, among others) came out several years ago, I helped organize a viewing for local survivors of the attack.

They wanted to see how faithful the movie would be to history. I wanted to hear what they had to say. I was disappointed in the movie, which seemed to take a monumental event in our nation's history and make it the subplot to a soapy romance.

They were surprisingly gracious, I thought. Sure, they had little use for the love story, but they still appreciated the movie.

Maybe, they said, it will inspire young people to go back and take a closer look at what happened on that peaceful Sunday morning in the Pacific. Maybe, they said, it will help them appreciate the sacrifices that have been made to preserve freedom for the generations that have followed.

I hope they're right.

Don't give up - don't ever give up

A salute to the Fightin' Fingers

Veterans Day is pretty personal in the Finger family.

Our father, Marvin, saw action in the Battle of the Bulge, was spun around by machine gun fire while storming the Seigfried Line, took part in missions behind enemy lines, suffered a life-altering back injury in Germany and marked V-E Day in a French hospital recovering from pneumonia he always blamed on the poison gas he inhaled while clearing out a building in Bamberg.

By my count, he should have been killed at least a half-dozen times. He made it home to Kansas by the grace of God, he would tell anyone who asked. He went on to have eight children with Helen, the sweetheart he began courting only a few months before he left for basic training.

One of them - the one named after him - join the Army after a brief stint in college. Why? Because his father had been in the military. Ironically, he would serve in Germany, guarding the border between West Germany and Czechoslovakia in the early 1970s. It was the height of the Cold War. Though neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union would ever admit to it officially, the American and Soviet forces would shoot at each other - if for no other reason than to let their foes know they were around.

It was no stroll in the forest, though back home we were grateful he hadn't been shipped off to the jungles of Vietnam. Deep down, we feared that was a possibility right up until the time his enlistment ended and he came home. I still rank the Christmas that followed to be the happiest of my childhood, so thrilled was Mom that her boy had returned home safe.

Merf, as we called him to differentiate him from Dad, would join the National Guard upon his return to the states, serving in Kansas, Colorado and Oregon. I've never told him this, but one of the reasons my coverage of Pope John Paul II's visit to Denver in 1993 is one of my favorite all-time assignments is because he happened to be assisting in the medical tents set up to care for anyone who fell ill at the papal Mass at Cherry Creek State Park.

There we were, two Finger boys, up to our elbows in a genuine piece of history: me describing to readers what the closing Mass of World Youth Day '93 was like, with hundreds of thousands of people jammed into the park; and Merf, scrambling to help treat thousands of young adults overcome by dehydration because they didn't take in enough fluids during the long, hot hike from downtown Denver to the park the day before, or at the park the day of the Mass.

So many people were being brought to the medical tents, he told me later, "it was like we were in a war zone."

My twin brother, Steve, has told me that if he had still been single when the war with Iraq broke out he would have joined the military. And I was flattered when the head of recruiting for the U.S. Army wanted to sign me up for officer training school after I'd finished interviewing him several years ago.

When I learned one of my nephews, Joshua Stacey, had joined the Marines, I couldn't help but smile. Another generation of Fingers was serving our country.

Long may it be so.

A Magnificent Seventh

I just got word that the book I co-authored, "Into the Deep," with Robert Rogers, is into its 7th printing. That's more than 35,000 books, I'm told --- a strong showing in this publishing and economic climate.

No, I won't be able to retire on the royalties, but it's still gratifying to see this unfold. Long may it continue!