Josh Benner

Category: My Life

  • 7 years later – reflections of moving away for college

    I don’t really recall what my expectations were for Bowling Green when I moved away for college. It was seven years ago today.
    (more…)

  • Did I just see who I think I saw?

    In the summer of 2005, I had an internship working with youth program at a church in Dublin, Ohio. Yesterday was the last Sunday service for that church’s pastor and associate pastor – two men for whom I have much respect. And naturally, I wanted to attend their last Sunday at the church and show my support as they both move on to new positions.

    Now it is a Methodist church. One of the first things that happened in the service was that the pastor baptized a baby. Theologically, I’m not a proponent of baptizing infants. There are certainly a lot of people and a lot of denominations who would disagree with that stance, but that’s just what I believe. I don’t think that it has any negative spiritual consequences; however I think that the point of baptism is more geared towards people who already have faith, and not towards babies who are incapable of having faith (unless that baby is John the Baptist).

    And so I sent a text message to a friend of mine poking fun at the fact that this church was baptizing an infant that morning. I was jokingly referring to the practice as something cultish and went as far as to speculate as to whether or not some sort of voodoo dance would be happening next.

    So the church service continues, it was a great message. Afterwards, I was standing outside of the sanctuary trying to look around for familiar faces. I happen to notice a man wearing a beige, pinstriped suit. I also couldn’t help but notice his unorthodox hairstyle. Thought to myself, “Hopefully he doesn’t have a run in with the fashion police today. He’ll be doing hard time.”

    I continued to look around the room, and see some changes that had happened to the church since the last time I had attended. Then I see the man in the beige suit again, and I see his face, look at him for a second, and a thought entered my mind.

    “I’m pretty sure that is former Ohio State football star AJ Hawk.”

    So I went on to do the logical thing, and as indiscreetly as I could, I held up my phone and nonchalantly snapped a picture. Looked down at the picture – fearful that when I looked back up I was going to have AJ Hawk sprinting towards me – and I was still unsure.

    But I thought, “If that is AJ Hawk, I would assume his wife would be with him.” He is in a pretty high profile marriage. Hawk is married to the sister of former Notre Dame and Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn. Famously, in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl when Ohio State played Notre Dame, the camera constantly showed Laura Quinn (now Laura Hawk) in her half Ohio State half Notre Dame football jersey.

    Then I saw a woman who looked like Laura Quinn Hawk. Considering that the Quinn family is from Dublin, it seemed possible that they could be in attendance at this church. While I was still processing this in my mind as to whether or not they were the Hawks, whom do I see walk out of the sanctuary? Brady Quinn.

    I could not believe it.

    And then they left the church as I hurried to text one of my college fraternity brothers that I had just seen AJ Hawk and Brady Quinn.

    So I eventually make my way over to the younger son of the pastor of the church: a guy who is a couple of years younger than I am, and who had been in the youth group when I worked at this church. I ask him, “Were AJ Hawk and Brady Quinn at church today?”

    He says, “Yeah. Hawk has a baby and my dad baptized her this morning.”

    I thought, “THAT WAS AJ HAWK’S KID WHO WAS BAPTIZED?!”

    I could not believe it.

    Not only did I see AJ Hawk’s kid get baptized, I was making fun of the practice of baptizing children while I was watching AJ Hawk’s kid get baptized.

    Needless to say, if AJ Hawk ever happens to read this: he has a lovely family, and I think that it’s great that they value such a significant spiritual activity in the lives of their children.

    Also, later that afternoon, the fraternity brother who I had texted when I saw Hawk and Quinn texted me back that a friend of his who works at a local golf course had just texted him that the two football players were both getting ready to tee off.

    jrb

  • Is my family weird for doing this?

    I’ve been debating writing about this for awhile. My family has a reunion every year, and to me, it’s always seemed weird.

    Here’s the question: if your family has a reunion, is it setup as a meeting?

    What I mean is that it is setup like a formal organization meeting. There is an agenda, there are minutes. They always read the minutes from the previous year’s reunion.

    There are committees that have budgets, there is a president.

    That’s weird, right?

    Do other families do that? Or is it just mine?

    This was on my mind today, because the annual reunion was today. This event has been going on for decades (of course). I was unable to go to this year’s reunion because I had a prior committment, but it has always been amusing to me to see just how formally this reunion runs.

    While I may sound like I’m making fun of it, I will give credit where credit is due. It is run effeciently. I would be very interested in hearing any comments.

    jrb

  • Peter Falk’s greatest role: himself

    Yesterday, I received a news notification from CNN on my phone that actor Peter Falk had died. Falk was best known for his role as Columbo, but I was born in 1985. I’ve never seen Columbo. A second thought then entered my mind.

    I thought to myself, “I think that guy played an American in a German film that I watched in high school…”

    I vaguely recalled a movie called Wings of Desire where two angels observe people in their daily lives, and where one of the angels falls in love with a human woman and gives up his immortality (because angels are immortal, as everyone knows) in order to become a mortal man and pursue the woman with whom he has fallen in love.

    Spoiler alert: he becomes mortal and the two fall in love. It is the only film in the history of German cinema to have a happy ending.

    That all may sound familiar. There is an American remake of the film called City of Angels made in 1998 starring Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage. Although it doesn’t end happily. Meg Ryan gets hit by a truck and dies.

    But what did Peter Falk have to do with the German version of the story? Did the wires in my psyche get proverbially crossed and supplant him into the plot of a movie I barely paid attention to almost a decade ago?

    So I went to the Wikipedia article. First things first. My recollection of the plot was pretty spot on. And not only had Peter Falk been in the movie, he PLAYED HIMSELF. Peter Falk played Peter Falk in a 1980s German movie. Greatest actor of all time.

    He plays himself, and you find out that Peter Falk used to be an angel, but had, like the star of the film, given up his immortality to become a human. And now Peter Falk is deceased. I couldn’t help but wonder, “what if Peter Falk actually had been an angel?”

    Peter Falk playing Peter Falk is on the same level of awesome as in the Eddie Money song “Take Me Home Tonight,” where Eddie says, “just like Ronnie sang…”

    And then Ronnie Spector, who was famous for singing a song titled “Be My Baby” in the Ronettes sings “be my little baby.”

    As an aside, the star of Wings of Desire was Bruno Ganz. He played Hitler in an amazing movie about Germany’s last days in World War II called Downfall.

    That movie features a climactic scene where it becomes apparent that winning the war is no longer a possibility for Germany. Hitler explodes in a rage at his senior officials.

    There are several dozen videos on YouTube which utilize this scene and change the subtitles jokingly. You’ve probably seen these. That’s Bruno Ganz. He was also in the Liam Neeson thriller called Unknown which came out earlier this year.

    Recalling Peter Falk was definitely a blast from the past. Rest in Peace Peter Falk.

  • Things I won’t watch this year: Heisman and NCAA title game

    The NCAA is the most legalistic entity that man has ever created, with the possible exception of the Sanhedrin. The fact that Cameron Newton is eligible is unconscionable. It was no surprise this weekend when Newton was awarded the Heisman Trophy, but i did not watch. Just as I will not be watching him play in the national championship game next month. Why? Because I’m not in the mood to watch auburn win knowing that the title will likely be stripped away from them in the future. If that happens, it is as if this game will have never happened, so what is the point of waisting my time now to see something that will have not have officially ever existed in the future?

    Did Newton have the best season of any player in the country? Absolutely. But in the same season when Reggie Bush became the first Heisman winner to return the award ever as a result of being ruled ineligible for the 2005 season, giving the Heisman to someone who has a high likelihood of later being ruled ineligible is highly irresponsible.

    But that’s not fair to Cam.

    Fair? Fair? This entire situation is completely unfair to the fans. College football is not a perfect mirror of the civil society, and I think organizations should be looked at from a more utilitarian view. In the NCAA, if an athlete’s family receives funds, the athlete is ineligible. Regardless of if the athlete knows.

    If Cam’s father, Cecil Newton took funds, Cam is ineligible. But that’s not fair either. No, it’s not fair, but it’s not worth the entire sport taking another major credibility hit for the sake of waiting until we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he broke the rules when we do know that they attempted to break the rules.

    That’s the price you pay for trying to break the rules.

    The NCAA knows the Cecil Newton solicited money from Mississippi State. Mississippi State was originally Cameron Newton’s top choice after he left Florida, and his father wanted to get a six figure sum of money. Mississippi State wouldn’t pay.

    It’s interesting. It’s interesting that Mississippi State was Cam’s top choice but they wouldn’t pay, however Cam went to Auburn. If Cam’s father didn’t receive money after he solicited money from Mississippi State, but Mississippi State was Cam’s top choice, why is Cam at Auburn?

    Let’s recap:
    top choice: Mississippi State.
    Then your dad tries to get money from Mississippi State.
    Mississippi State says “no.”
    Newton goes to Auburn.
    If Mississippi State was your top choice and wouldn’t pay you, why wouldn’t you still go there?
    Could it be that Auburn boosters were willing to pay?

    I know Cam doesn’t know about what’s going on. But he also transferred away from Florida before the university could have an expulsion hearing for academic dishonesty. Newton said that he had transferred, not because of the fact he faced expulsion but because Tim Tebow was coming back.

    Interestingly he transferred before Tebow ever said he was returning for his senior year.

    The feel good part of the Cameron Newton story has, for a long time, been a story about a bond between father and son and how Cameron has said on multiple occasions that he had given his father the reigns of selecting where he would play football. However this weekend, Newton cont stayed he had decided himself.

    There was the stolen laptop.

    There is a history of times when we know he has lied, where he has done things that are shady, where we KNOW that his dad tried to get money, and where a church of which his father is pastor seemed to magically receive a donation in order to keep its doors open.

    But everything is on the up and up.

    It is not Worth further diminishing the NCAA for the sake of being “fair.”

    The NCAA has strict rules about families taking money and the rules are in place regardless of if the athlete knows. As I’ve said before on my website, this is the way it has to be. Otherwise, the athletes could play dumb, or even legitimately be unaware, but in either situation, the family’s could take bribes. As a result, the rules must be very strict and enforced across the board.

    If the NCAA keeps throwing away its credibility, it is going to get progressively harder to get back. If Cameron Newton and his father truly are innocent, I think the fact that they attempted to break the rules is enough to make him ineligible. Their original sin was when Cecil Newton initially attempted to break the rules. That action, and their previous histories give a lot of circumstances that bring their honesty into question and it is because of all of the controversy which they have brought upon themselves, that people should not have cast Heisman votes for Newton and why he should not be playing for a national championship.

    John Stewart Mill would be proud of me.

    jrb

    sources: some of the points in this article, I have heard made by local Columbus radio show host Scott Torgerson.