Lance Allred the official website of the Lance Allred who is not the professional Poker player

Happy Thanksgiving…. To Me!

It appeared that the gods were smiling on me this year, and fortuitously allowing my contract in Pesaro to end just in time for me to fly back home for Thanksgiving! As I packed up my bags, not worrying about where the next job would be coming from, I was giddy with excitement, imagining the sweet potato and pecan pies, and the turkey and mashy tates.

Ali, the team manager picked me up at 4 am and drove me to Bologna, where I caught a flight to Paris, that then would be connected straight to Seattle, then to Missoula, Montana as the family is converging there this year... and I am very happy about that.

It was a grueling 10 hour flight, mostly because of the 18-month-old across the aisle from me that was something out of this world. He cried the WHOLE time. All 10 hours. I am not lying. Just sobbing and sobbing. While his mother and grandmother, both of whom wore Indian/Hindu attire, peacefully ignored him. About 2 hours into the flight my annoyance towards the young child soon turned to respect and even admiration, as this kid was not going to break. No. He was going to cry, tears streaming down his cheeks for 10 straight hours. Like a train wreck, I could not turn away. The need for sleep that could only be achieved if the kid would ever stop screaming, was soon trumped by my fascination as I just observed, with veneration, this demi-god in human baby form. “HE will eventually have to make himself sick,” I reasoned, believing that he could not go on that much longer screaming and wailing. “Or at least he will just tire himself out, and he will just pass out and go to sleep.”

Nope. This kid easily lost half of his body weight through tear drops in the ten hour flight, but as it was no matter, as damn it all, he was determined to cry the whole time. And he was going to do it. Oh yes, he was.
We landed and went through customs, allowing ourselves to believe it really is making a difference, and then I sat in Seattle for a 4 and a half hour layover. My agent John lives in Seattle, but he ignored me, as he no doubt was not wanting to have to share any pie with me, knowing full well that I would devour them.

Finally the plane begins to board to Missoula, Montana. I get on, and take my seat. Not a very full flight. I turn my hearing aids off as the sound of the jet engines, especially when the doors are still open, cause my hearing aids to go haywire. We take off. 45 min flight.

I look out the window as the plane descends and I am trying to find the familiar sights, but I am not seeing anything. What direction did we fly in from? I look over across the aisle and I see a canadian passport, and then another, and then another. I turn to the people behind, canadian passport. “Excuse me,” I ask politely. “This plane is going to Missoula, Montana right.”
A smile, but then a ghostly pale face of pity creeps on the lady’s face. “You’re joking right?” She sees my face. “Oh, please tell me you’re joking.”
“No.”
“Oh. No. We have just landed in Kelowna.”
I blink. “Is it then connecting to Missoula?”
“No.”
I then am taken back by a hot flash, as I begin to sweat in 3 seconds flat. I barely am able to murmur, “Um..... well, where is Kelowna?”
“British Columbia.”
I tried. Oh I tried, but I could not stop the tears welling up in my eyes, as I dropped my head and just started sobbing. Just like that little boy on the flight from Paris- He taught me well.

How does this happen?
Well, I don’t like to talk about my hearing very much. On poor quality intercoms and speakers, and even on the best of them, I don’t hear them well, the garbled, static swamped words. I just don’t. And I don’t admit it very well either.
And so when the intercom says, “we are now boarding to Kelowna,” it sounds like Missoula, at least to me it does, because I hear and count the 3 syllables....
KE-LOW-NA
MI-SOU-LA
And the vowels are not precise, but are similar in their tone and pronunciation.
And on the shoddy schedule board, it shows that Missoula is indeed up next to be departing from gate c-10.
How the ticket machine did not register, nor the gate attendant missed my ticket, I don’t know.
How I got on an international flight without showing my passport..... I don’t know.

And of course the one seat I am sitting in, 18-b, is a vacant seat on the plane to Kelowna, so nothing is brought up. Had someone been in that seat, obviously an awkward and embarrassing moment would have ensued and I would have taken a walk of shame of the plane. But I would rather have that and still have Thanksgiving dinner with my family for the first time in a long time, than sitting in the back of an emptying plane, somewhere in Canada, doing a sob of shame.

Furthermore, had I not turned my hearing aids off, like I usually do when boarding a plane, I might have heard the flight attendant say something about Canada....

It was just a perfect storm- concocted by the very gods that I thought were being gracious by letting me come home. Nope, they had to get one last laugh in, before cutting me free.

So, here I am now, in the hotel that the airline has arranged, as they will be flying me back to Seattle tomorrow and then connecting me to Missoula on the same flight I missed today. But, thankfully we call it Thanksgiving weekend for a reason, and my family will now be having Thanksgiving on Friday this year. But still, it would have been nice to be home today, on the real Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving Mom...... hopefully next year.

Now.... let’s Google Kelowna and find out just where in the hell it is exactly.

Postcards from Urbino-

An excerpt from my most recent book and collection of short stories and poems, which I am about to complete, The Pesaro Poems

Hey Mom,

Hope you are well.

I finally found that great Medieval European City I have been hoping to find- Urbino. (Which is obvious from the postcard.)

It is a fantastic Renaissance era city, that was once home to Raphael, and only 30 minutes from Pesaro. It is by far my favorite city I have encountered in all my travels. I wish you could have been here today. I spent the day walking the old brick and stone streets, through narrow and wide alleyways, through grotto chapels and grandiose cathedrals, and Raphael’s house. Just outside of his house, I bought a gelato, as well as one for the little bambino next to me. But he forget to say Grazie, but I am sure it was because he was so surprised that I was either giving him an gelato cone or else at the sheer magnitude of my sheer; coy little bambino.

Urbino has completely captured my imagination. It is small enough to walk through and back in 2 hours, seeing everything that you need to see, at least within the old medieval walls, where the heart of the city and university reside, which rests atop its own hill among a landscape of many other hills that are spotted and checkered with patchwork of farm land and vineyards. Italians know how to get the most out of what land they have to work with.

It is beautiful. It is the picture perfect Italian setting I have imagined in my mind that I would hope to one day see.

Also, I found my favorite spot/seat in the entire world- It is on the western hill, above the city, where the old fort lies, overlooking the heart of Urbino and the great Cathedral and Ducal Palace. I discovered it as I was walking back to the car, when a tiny archway appeared in the old city wall, and I entered it out of curiosity, not sure where it led to, but I am big enough that I am never usually worried about someone mugging me, daring caution to come and do what it will.

When I ascended to the top of the staircase, it opened out into a courtyard, overlooking the city below. As I did, the church bell struck 5pm in perfect sequence, as the sun was setting and the old bricks of the palace and cathedral caught fire from the light.

I took a seat on a log, and I just sat there and marveled at this amazing renaissance city, nothing like I had ever seen, but had hoped to see for all my life. And to realize it was not a fantasy, but that such a place existed, was the greatest find I have ever happened upon in all of my travels across the globe. I sat there for an hour. Just sat there. Didn’t think about anything. I was just there. Present and aware. Watching.

I wish you could have been here to see it with me. It was a perfect day. A nice, crisp 59 degree fall day. Perfect for a long walk. I was only wearing a t-shirt and the Italians looked at me as though I was crazy, while they wore their winter blizzard coats, shivering their fears from their chatting teeth about how hyperthermia was soon about to set in for them at any moment. They have no idea what cold is.

“You should wear a coat,”an elderly lady chastised me after chatting with me about Pesaro Basket. “November comes.” I smiled conceding her point. But then my heart sank.

Yes, November comes.

A reminder that another thanksgiving away from home is coming my way. Too many Thanksgivings now have come and gone quietly, by myself with a makeshift dinner, while I can only hope the rest of my family is having a wonderful one. Too many come and gone. Too many missed Thursday morning flag football games and afternoon spectating, with you making your perfect meal, as I lazily slumber down for a nice nap, before and after dinner. Another missed day with my family. All for this game called basketball, that I could not tell you if I even love anymore.

It has been a tough fall. As you know, we are just waiting to see what happens when my contract expires in Pesaro in a few weeks, and all I can do is bide my time, and wait for the fates to send me wherever it is they would wish to send me.

How do I know I don’t love the game anymore? I don’t really know, or know the right words at least. I guess I just feel like I am the giver, in a relationship of unrequited love. It is not that much different from a human relationship really- I am too easy, I am too available to her. And thus she takes me for granted, while she chases after the boys who don’t give her enough attention, rewarding them with the love that I would kill for, and work so hard for, but can never have. It is a vicious cycle. It really is the only way to describe why and how it works, and that basketball is a living intelligence, and thus she is as flawed and fickle as the next human. And I am at this point where I am done giving, and I am done loving, until she decides she wants to own up to her part. And when I am gone, she can then realize how much she misses me and how she took me for granted, but I wont be holding my breathe for that day, for I will have moved on.

But there is another truth that I cannot avoid. And that is there is a part of me that does not care if she loves me back, because I do not expect it in return. I don’t love to be loved in return. I never have. This is not to say that I love, to be a martyr..... No. But that, I love, to love. I love just to be able to give love. I love so that I can feel life.

And so basketball chooses not to love me back with the love I have given her, that is fine, and there is a reason why she is dying. She has lost her soul. It has been gutted, and she has been blinded to all the lights and wealth and attention shown her way, and for awhile she could get away with it. But now, the game is dying, because she has forgotten to be grateful for the blue-collars like me and many others, who toil and work harder, for less, in the back rows, while she gives her lion’s-share to those with great, raw talent, but who couldn’t be less interested. She shares the same mortal flaws as we humans. But that is ok, because I still love her. And I always will. I guess MacLean said it best, when we can love someone, something completely, without completely understanding them. I don’t understand her, but I will always love her. Is it fair? No. But that is life.

And this is life. And this my life now. I feel like I haven’t seen you or Mac in 2 years, that is how dark and deep these trails have gone into the essence of who and what I choose to be. These last 2 months have been the hardest, but also the most triumphant of my life.

So, the game has not given me millions, like she has for others who have worked far less.

Nor have I received a multi-million dollar shoe contract or other endorsement offers, like some of the lucky ones.

But I have received something that cannot be bought and is worth more than anything that the game could ever offer me.

And I have only recently found it, somewhere on the beaches of Pesaro, and the streets of Urbino- Freedom from the opinions of others.

And that is why I am here. That is why I am in Italy. I would never have found it at home, in Cleveland or elsewhere in the NBA. Only here, after emerging from the fire, from the hell that almost sent me out a window, only here could I have found it. And it is mine.

I have won.

And that is reality.

This is my reality.

And God is reality.

And I cannot argue with God.

Keep a place for me at the table this Thanksgiving.

Loving you always,

From these immortal streets of Urbino,

Your Son,

Lance Collin Allred