TERRY MOSHER
TARVARIS JACKSON
This is a warning to all of us in this political season that it’s a good idea not to get too wrapped up in what we hear about people, especially athletes, because what we hear often does not coincide with reality.
I’m talking about former backup Seahawk quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, who I often heard during his career with the NFL team what a great guy and a tremendous teammate he was.
Based on that, I assumed this guy was the second-coming of a former great guy like, say, Bill Cosby, who we all have discovered was not the great guy that we all have an image of based on his career and public offerings.
But like Cosby (ok, not anywhere near like Cosby), Jackson as it turns out is not quite the guy we all have read about. Jackson recently was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after he apparently pulled a gun on a woman who might be his wife.
The one thing that stands out here for me is that we don’t even know if it was his wife, or if he has a wife, and yet we think we know the guy because he was said to be a great teammate.
The second thing we learn is that he made approximately $12 million in his NFL career yet he claimed the other day that he was broke and needed a public defender, which was denied by a judge because, well, because he did have a $100,000 car.
If I have learned anything over the years is that what I see is often not what it seems, so I look for evidence beyond the public posturing and words and look for body language and actions to determine what I’m dealing with. Even then I get fooled once in a while.
I guess I should not make such a big deal about this, because Jackson may be better than what he has been charged with doing, and this might just be a one-time incident. But then when I think of all the money he has made and now he claims to be broke, that gets me stoked. What did he do with all that money?
This also for me is another reason why I don’t want a gun around. If you want a gun, fine, have one. But not me. I can’t kill things. I have a hard time with spiders. I find one I try to put them outside of the house if I can. And in my old age I have a hard time deciding that a small tree needs to go because it is obstructing my view or overgrowing the driveway. That is just me, but a tree, a flower, is a living thing and deserves to have a chance to share this world just as much as I do.
I’m rambling on here and I was just trying to make a point that don’t immediately believe everything you see or hear because often you will be disappointed in the end, and I’m disappointed that what I believed about Jackson is apparently not reality.
I often warn myself that another Seahawk quarterback might not be as good as he seems to be, so I’m careful when I view Russell Wilson through the public lens of stories or TV shots of him doing whatever he is doing.
Wilson seems too good to be true and as I have found out time after time if it is too good to be true than it is possible, very possible, that it is too good to be true. I hope I’m going to be found out wrong on Wilson because I don’t want him to wind up like Jackson.
But we will see.
As for me, I’m not anywhere close to being too good to be true. I’m human, I have faults, but for the last 27 years since our granddaughter was killed I try to be better today than yesterday and when I do take a step backward I acknowledge it and try not to make the same mistake again.
I live in God’s world. He created this and I’m trying to live in it as He would want me to live it. I get nauseous when I see the killing of innocent people, as we all have seen recently, and the rise of people that are clearly not fit to be in a position of power and sometimes I pray for God to intervene to put a stop to all this madness.
I have a lot of nieces and one of them a week ago started an online discussion with me that led me to declare that sometimes I think Hell is life on Earth. She said that she thinks that way too because there is “so much turmoil and sadness it is hard to imagine something worse.”
Bottom line is that all I can do is try to be positive, try to get better and pray for the best to happen. So that is what I will leave you with today. This weekend is a time to reflect on what a great country we live in, a place where we can speak our opinions without being slapped in jail or killed and a place where even spiders – at least n my house – can be safe.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.