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There is no free lunch (at McDonald’s)

Read this story.

If the facts are 100 percent correct as alleged by this McDonald’s worker then it would be enough for me to say: “I’m not ever going to McDonald’s again.”

What the hell. I hardly ever go to McDonald’s anyway.

Basically this girl alleges she was fired from her job at McDonald’s after paying for some firefighters’ meal after they returned from a house fire. Then another group came in and she felt they should get a comp as well. She texted her boss to ask. That was the straw that broke Ronald’s back, allegedly. McDonald’s say there is more to the story of her firing than was stated. Oh, but they can’t say anything because of privacy laws. How freaking convenient.

I guess this rubs me the wrong way in more than one way. The biggest irritant is that the fast food joint doesn’t make cops pay but apparently not other public service types. This has been and, apparently still is, a practice at more than just the golden arches. A bit more than 30 years ago when I was a firefighter that was the widespread practice in the town in which I lived. Not that you work for the perks, but hell, sometimes people do appreciate the job you do. You are risking your life when you roll out of the station.

People seem to have more of an appreciation of public safety people now, more so than they did before 9/11. Still, I guess some of the restaurant people figure they can only give out free food only to so many. Okay, when that grease trap you didn’t ever clean catches fire and puts the place into an inferno, go call your hero coppers to put it out. Sorry.

I do remember some girls bringing cookies to our station one time. It was a couple of days after we helped get them back inside their house after they locked themselves out.

Once, I do recall eating at a McDonald’s after a fire. It was an early Sunday morning, must have been early January because the college still was out and there was zero traffic. I was riding in the open jump seat with someone. Can’t recall who. Mike was driving and Mason was lieutenant. I don’t remember who all was on the other pumper either. I guess I remember those two guys because they are gone after relatively early deaths. I remember it was sleeting or snowing that day. A car with a guy, his wife and kids, passed by and looked at me and my fellow firefighter riding the jump seat like, “These guys must be freezing.”

This was back when I was still young. Really pretty young. I guess I was about 23. Man, I had fun back in those days.

We ate breakfast, a Mickey D’s Big Breakfast as I recall. And I remember Mason paid for it. I don’t recollect if Mason paid for those of us on both trucks but he did pick up Engine 309’s tab. That’s more than I can say for Mickey D.

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Local university fires coach with famous name, maybe more

Basketball, has not been berry berry good to me. I never played, at least in an organized fashion. I was the varsity team’s equipment manager as a high school freshman. That was prior to my career throughout high school as a sports writer. Then pick up games, the most famous happening at the end of my first week at rookie school as a firefighter. A guy named Blaine threw me a hard pass and, snap, went my left pinkie. About two years later I broke the other pinkie playing another pickup game. From then on, nothing stronger than H-O-R-S-E.

Basketball has not been berry berry good to our local university either. Fans at Lamar University, a low-end Division I NCAA school in Beaumont, Texas, thought they’d been set afire two years ago when the school hired Pat Knight as mens basketball coach. Yes, as in that Knight. In the end, Lamar basketball had not been so beery berry good to Pat Knight.

The junior Knight led his first Lamar Cardinals team to the 2012 NCAA Tournament. The team crapped out in the first round. But it was the first Cardinal team to go to the big show in 20 years. It did take some Bobby Knight-like bluster. His lengthy rant after his team was verbally scorched by my old alma mater, Stephen F. Austin, went viral on You Tube.

 “I mean these kids are stealing money by being on a scholarship … “ Pat Knight said at one point in the nearly nine-minute harangue.

That massive tongue-lashing seemed to turn the team around, as they won the conference title and headed to the NCAA tourney. But since then. Nothing. Or about as close as you can get. Last season, Lamar went 3-28 overall. This year was 3-22, as for the Knight era, which ended last night. He was fired with two years remaining on his contract.

It seemed as if a story about an upcoming Lamar- University of New Orleans match-up Thursday was psychic. A Friday Times-Picayune story was headlined: “Lamar University Coach Pat Knight facing heat playing UNO Thursday.” Of course, Knight no longer faces heat.

My not being a big basketball fan, perhaps, expands the patience I have for folks. Especially those people who I find very entertaining. The university just brought back football and one would expect a team would need a bit of time to stack those building blocks together. The football Cardinals haven’t swept up its share of winning either. I guess it is because I have met Lamar football coach Ray Woodard and found him to be a genuinely nice guy is where I tune out calls by those who expect instant wins to fire him. I had plenty of patience for Pat Knight, though I don’t personally know him. Of course, Knight has also perhaps expected the trapdoor, even though he didn’t say so out loud.

In a very non-basketball way, Pat Knight has been good for Lamar and good for college hoops. As the son of one of the top three winningest college coaches and himself a player on an NCAA Championship team, Knight has seen how the glory of the game makes some players feel they are bigger than the game itself. For some reason, some chumps who can do not much more than shoot hoops think the world should be made over in their likeness. Knight, Pat and Bob, seem to think young men should be cut down a notch. Perhaps it is to remind the players that they should always be shooting up toward the hoops rather than down at them and at the rest of the world.

Or maybe they’re just big bullies on an ego trip. Who the hell knows?

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It’s only rock and roll and 50 years later … damn knee!

Perhaps I have been a bit inattentive lately. I swear I have an excuse. But you know what they say about excuses — Yes, everyone’s an ass****. Well, maybe not.

My right knee has, quite frankly, hurt like a sonofabitch for the last month. It still does but I’m hopefully getting a little closer to the reason why. I went to a non-VA doctor and he says it looks as it I have a torn cartilage. Probably a meniscus tear would be my guess. I am awaiting an appointment for a MRI that may tell me what’s up. In the meantime, the orthopedist told me no standing for more than two hours a day. I might have to get him to add no sitting for more than two hours. It feels okay when the knee is bent. It is standing up that is tricky.

Just putting my two scents in on that Beatles tribute on CBS earlier in the week. Sunday maybe? Whenever.

Someone once told me there are two kinds of people in the world. There are Beatles people and there are Stones people. Well, I’m a Stones people, uh, person. I saw them in concert 30 years ago at the Superdome and figured it amazing they were still getting around very well back then. And now. Damn, Mick must be 100 years old. Keith Richards looks 200 at least. But their music is still … great.

I like the Beatles too. Some of their music I liked more than others. Wasn’t much of a Sgt. Pepper’s fan. Abbey Road is my favorite Beatles album and one of my favorite all-time works. The White Album comes second. George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” is one of my favored songs from that album. It was played powerfully during the Beatles 50-year tribute by guitarists/vocalists Gary Clark Jr., Joe Walsh and drummer Dave Grohl. Clark is an Austin bluesman, whom sadly, I had not heard of but perhaps heard. Walsh, from James Gang and later Eagles guitarist and presidential candidate rounded out a great leading trio on the Harrison song with Grohl, of the Foo Fighters, drumming his heart out.

Not so much did I care for the covers by Maroon 5, although I like some of Adam Levine and the band’s songs, mostly “Harder to Breathe.” Katie Perry, Grammy queen, was seemingly panned by most writers I have seen after the tribute concert for her take on “Yesterday.” But then what do writers know anyway?

The two surviving Beatles? They still rock. I wonder though, what they might look like if they looked their age? Ringo? Half-bald and a pot belly? Paul, like he did singing on the Rooftop Concert. Even 80-year-old Yoko Ono was dancing during the tribute and … I wonder what John was thinking, way back when?

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Fandemonium. Not too Smart.

It is funny how some exciting sporting is taking place in Sochi, Russia, and the big sports story over the weekend concerned a top NBA prospect and Oklahoma State star pushing a rabid Texas Tech fan.

The player wasn’t just any player. He is Marcus Smart, a young man destined for the NBA draft, or was until this weekend.

Smart went out of bounds and into the crowd after a fast break. He was then pushed by Tech fanatic, Jeff Orr, after the latter spouted some disputed trash talk. Orr, an air traffic controller and Tech “No. 1 fan” from Waco, contends he called Smart “a piece of crap.” Smart said he was called a racial slur.

In the end, Smart was suspended three games. Orr was banned from Tech games for the remainder of the season. No aspersions cast here on Raiders Coach Tubby Smith, but one wishes Bobby Knight was still coaching for tech.

What Smart was called is no longer relevant. The damage was done, to an already iffy reputation for the player. And the fan who reportedly drives hundreds of miles to see his team will have to spend his off days trying to catch the Red Raiders on TV.

Smart showed poor judgement. Orr showed just as poor judgement. Still, it doesn’t seem like a tie. Read a “leftist” perspective here.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of such a show. I’ve seen it myself in high school. I was team equipment manager. We were at a very hostile venue. Our biggest and best player was clearly called “a n*****.” This player responded by handling the ball with his left hand showing a middle finger while passing in bounds. The redneck who yelled at this player responded by pulling out a rather large pocket knife. Luckily the Texas Highway Patrol was on hand and the fan was removed. The game was soon over and the same troopers escorted us back to the bus and told us we should split. We did.

Our player overreacted, but less so than Smart. The fan’s reaction toward our high school player was way above what it should have been. I don’t know what happened to the fan. This was the early 1970s. He may have gotten a medal from his mouth-breathing cohorts. Our player got “soul shakes” and pats on the butt (?) all around. I chose the soul shake.

I don’t know what is the answer to these problems. These flare-ups been around for ages and at all levels. A video released by Texas Tech of the incident shows Orr hiking up his britches and smirking after Smart is restrained and headed back toward his bench. He reminded me of Rush Limbaugh.

Both men apologized. So no harm, I suppose. Smart did get a technical foul and OSU lost the game.