It’s weird what we remember and maybe not so weird what we have forgotten (we have close friends and family members to remind us of those, usually when it’s convenient for them to do so).

I bring this up because three of us went to a Mariners game and memories started to flood my mind as we walked underneath the walkway of the press box. I was in the Safeco press box from when it opened in July of 2001 through the 2005 season. Before that, I was at the Kingdome press box from 1977-2001.

That’s a lot of years being cooped up with a bunch of writers and broadcasters. And it’s funny how things changed over the years. We have gone from thinking like a Model-T to more like a Lamborghini since the Mariners began in 1976.

Baseball teams, for example, would not even think these days of installing a full keg of beer in their press boxes so writers could find inspiration in the brew drawn from those kegs. But that’s exactly what we had in the Kingdome press box in the early years. After a few years, the club got tough and hired a security guard to stand by the keg in case – I guess – a thirsty 5-year-old came by.

When the keg finally disappeared some of us moaned and groaned, but deep down we knew it was the right thing for the club to do. One writer, as I remember, really missed it. No, it wasn’t me.

But even then there was the big barrel that was always smack dab in the middle of the home clubhouse at the Kingdome. That thing was there well after the keg disappeared. What was so important about that barrel was that it was packed with ice and full beer cans.

Some of us writers would grab one or two on the way back up to the press box. We had to have inspiration, didn’t we?

There also was a coach – later a manager – who on his way out the door to go home (I think that is where he went, but who knows?) would stuff more than few beers in his pockets. When they were full, he would grab one for his hand, and out the door he would go.

Then one season – and I don’t remember the year – the Lamborghini arrived. No more beer in the clubhouse. I thought we had reverted to the middle 1960s when I worked in Oklahoma, which was a “dry” state. The only beer you could get in Tulsa during my stay there was near beer. You have to drink more than a few before the Model-T arrived. Otherwise, it was all Lamborghini.

The Kingdome press box was huge, but in comparison to the press box at Safeco it was a Model-T. Safeco, somebody said who had toured it before the place officially opened, had places behind each seat where you could store your belongings.

Really?

It also joined the electronic age, and quickly became wireless so writers could send their stories quite easily. Just hit a key on your laptop and, bingo, it zoomed off into cyberspace.

Wow!

It wasn’t entirely safe, however. There were large holes in the walls were 90 mph foul balls missed heads and fragile laptops (most of the time anyway). I caught a foul ball one day and promptly threw it back before others in the press box could say, “No, no, don’t ….”

I guess that was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Happily, nobody was beaned below from my soft toss out of the press box, and life went on.

Except for Jimmy Valvano.

It doesn’t see possible that Jimmy V has been dead for over 16 years. He coached North Carolina State to a stunning victory in the 1983 NCAA basketball championship and 10 years later died of cancer at the young age of 47.

Jimmy V didn’t go quietly. He never did anything quietly. I will always hear that loud, baritone voice – a perfect radio voice, by the way – saying, “Don’t give up, never give up.” He didn’t. But cancer has a way of beating people just as strong as Jimmy V. It can take the biggest, the strongest among us and whip us like a thousand tornados, leaving us wishing for death.

So Jimmy V, as strong as he was, as positive as he was, went down to the biggest defeat of his life on April 28, 1993. But before he left, he exhorted all of us to not to waste a moment of life not enjoying the beauty around us.

It was the first Espy Awards, just two months before he died, that he announced his “V Foundation” while accepting the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award. That foundation since has raised almost $80 million for cancer research.

I heard his voice again recently on Seattle sports talk radio as they were doing a benefit show for the V Foundation. It was good to hear it again. It reminded me to slow down, look around and marvel at the joy, the beauty around me.

His words at the Espy:

“Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.”

We all will leave this Earth, leaving our bodies behind. Our souls will go on into eternity. That soul is we. Jimmy V’s soul is around somewhere, still shouting for us to take care and be good.

“To me, there are three things we should do every day,” Jimmy V said that night. “We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is to laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.”

Jimmy Valvano wasn’t perfect. His program at North Carolina State was investigated and he was forced to resign his post as the school’s athletic director. But none of us are perfect. But we can all take time to enjoy what we have, and give thanks for those around us and share a laugh, as Jimmy V says, at least once a day, if not more.

I think of all the friends I have lost over the years, all except a few of them at a very young age, and I wish they were all still here. Bob, Amos, Gary, Ray, Dale, Lynn, Dick, Frank, Pete, Putt, Joe, Barb, Diane, Amy, Junior and, not the least, my mother who has been dead now 8 more years than she lived.

These people were not perfect. But they all made me laugh, they made me cry, and they made me think. Frank was the funniest guy around. I couldn’t wait for him to show up so my often somber days could be turned into light, a perfect picture of joy and beauty.

And Amy, she died at 5 in 1958 and, yet, I still can see her big smile as I pushed her around in a baby stroller. She made me laugh even in her deepest despair. She made me think of what could have been. And when she died, she made me cry for the shame of it all. Still does.

Dick gave me six months of pure joy on the beaches of southern California. I think of him often even though he died in an auto accident in 1962. I still see him and me body surfing off Hermosa Beach, sunning on the beach, girl watching, driving like crazy up the Harbor Freeway to La-La Land.

Oh, Dick was crazy, man. But he was a laugh a minute, and not once did he say anything bad about anybody. He gave and gave until the sun went down.

Then, in 1962, the sun went down for good.

So smile, think and cry. It’s okay to do that, you know,

You can even be a Lamborghini, if you want.

Have a great month.

You are loved.