Special Delivery to Greg Oden

I've just been reading some of the comments at the Trail Blazer Facebook page--some of those people are way too mean, others are thankfully very supportive.

Greg, I want you to know something that is very important to me. My almost 85-year-old mother and I moved here to Portland from Jackson, Mississippi, the summer of 2006. My two wonderful sons had already moved here and welcomed us with open arms. When you were drafted by Portland in 2007, my Mama perked up at all the news stories and became a basketball fan--she'll even miss "Wheel of Fortune" to watch the Trail Blazers. This is a cutie-pie little ol' lady who merely tolerated all sorts of sports during her 57 and one half year marriage to my Daddy who always had the TV on some sort of sporting event, but never basketball. I myself have been a basketball fan since the 1960s watching my brother play in school, and I kept score for the high school teams where I was a librarian for six years, home and away games. I adore the squeak of sneakers on the gym floor.

Anyway, I want to say a great big THANK YOU for the part your smile and your desire to do your best for Portland had in turning my mother into a basketball fan because we now have one more thing we can share as a couple of widows living together. She sits in her recliner, pulling for the Trail Blazers, pleased as punch when things go right, uttering a four-letter word that starts with an S, which she turns into two syllables, when things go bad. She's asked me to explain all sorts of terms--pick and roll, in the paint, setting a pick, and from the bench, to name a few. I've had to look some of them up on the Internet, rely on my ol' lady memory, and/or call my brother in Mississippi to get some help with the definitions. He's in the wrong time zone to be much help. Beside Mama on the table, she's got the schedule I printed from the Internet so that she won't forget about an upcoming game--she's keeping up with the wins and losses.

I sit in my chair watching the games, too, but some of the time I'm watching my Mama, the basketball fan. Thanks, Greg. Mama and I wish you the best with your surgery and recovery. We know you will rise again. We know it.