City of Two Tales

First off, there are times it seems life, if you’ll pardon the Dickensian twist, is a city of two tales: those of the cautionary variety and the ones with fairies. Occasionally, the two collide.

Last week’s edition of GMT was the hardest to finish in the nearly two years I’ve been at this. And not because it took so long to find the video clip of that SNL scene featuring Phil Hartman as washed-up actor Johnny O’Connor. I was trying to wrap up the piece at my buddy Quile’s house outside Fort Worth last Wednesday when we saw the news that the five-year-old daughter of singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman had been struck by a car and killed earlier that day. As unspeakably awful as that tragedy was, we cried even harder when we learned it happened in the driveway of the family’s home in Franklin, Tennessee and that the driver was the girl’s older brother who was backing out to leave and didn’t see his little sister.

I rarely listen to Christian music, primarily because I haven’t heard very many artists like Chapman. Lyrically, his songs reflect a faith I know is authentic because it’s been authenticated by close friends of mine who are close to him. An example of Chapman putting his faith into action came several years ago when his wife, Mary Beth, and he, already with three kids of their own, adopted three young girls from China, the youngest of which being the one who died, and established an organization to assist others in the adoption of unwanted children around the world.)

Rather than using his music to propagate the pious party line of the religious right, Chapman’s offerings are often clever, frequently sweet, and genuinely deep. One of his most recent releases is all of the above. He wrote the song “Cinderella” after a particularly tedious attempt to put his two youngest girls to bed eventually gave way to the realization of how quickly time had turned his oldest child from a giggly girl into a soon-to-be-bride. You can listen to the song here if your upper lip is feeling particularly stiff.

As the dad of a princess-loving six-year-old – who’s currently in the next room playing make-believe with her best friend and making it difficult for me to concentrate on this column – I turned to mush the first time I heard the song a couple of months ago. I’m fully aware that my days as Anna Claire’s preferred dance partner are numbered. More than two years have zipped past since I penned this piece about her turning four.

When I thought about little Maria Chapman unintentionally helping inspire her dad to write “Cinderella” and then that her life’s clock struck midnight way too soon, it was virtually impossible to write anything coherent the rest of the night. I was a mess. Still am.

The most preposterous component of a fairy tale isn’t what happens in the middle. Heroes, conflict, villains, and derring-do are occasionally the stuff of real life, too. It’s the Happily Ever After in stories like Cinderella that appeals to us, primarily because we know there’s no such thing in our three dimensions. We love the idea that a life could be lived within the sanitary pages of a children’s book, but we’re at least unconsciously aware that in the real world Prince Charming occasionally clogs the toilet or a member of the royal family has a learning disability or the weeds keep returning no matter how many times you pull them up.

Golf’s three big winners Sunday experienced what some might describe as storybook endings. In Fort Worth, Phil Mickelson hoisted his approach on the 72^nd hole over the trees and onto the green where he made a nine-footer to win. Phil the Thrill at his best.

A quick glance at the Mickelson family album might suggest his has been a fairy tale existence. It certainly seemed that way at the 1996 EDS Byron Nelson Championship. That was just a few years into his own career and a few months before Tiger turned pro, so Mickelson was still considered easily the best young player in the game and hadn’t yet begun fielding questions about why he hadn’t won a major.

As that tournament was drawing to a close, I was one of a handful of reporters gathered around a TV monitor in the media center watching ABC interview his then-fiancée, Amy, who looked, as she does now, strikingly attractive. With Phil nearing a Nelson victory, they asked Amy how she thought he was doing, to which she eloquently and appropriately replied, “I’m really impressed with his course management.” One salty scribe muttered to no one in particular, “That’s not fair.”

Yes, the handsome prince got the girl, their progeny look like Hummel figurines, and he’s currently sitting on three major championships and more money than Charles Barkley could lose in Vegas. And yes, a lot of people would gladly and quickly trade circumstances. But the fairy tale misses the misery of all those years he was labeled a choker. And the nasty and persistent rumors of myriad personal indiscretions (none of which have ever been substantiated). And that day in March 2003 when Amy had complications trying to give birth to their first boy, Evan, and both mother and son nearly died. A storybook life? In its own way perhaps. A fairy tale? Hardly.

Leta Lindley has spent the last 14 years becoming an overnight success. Sunday, in her 295^th start on the LPGA Tour, she finally won for the first time, taking the Corning Classic in a playoff over Jeong Jang. A highly-touted All-America when she left the University of Arizona, Lindley nearly won the LPGA Championship in just her third year on Tour but lost a playoff that day and never came closer to victory until Sunday. There was no Happily Ever After in the voice of her husband/caddy Matt Plagmann when I spoke to him a couple of hours after their breakthrough. It was part vindication and part relief. “We’ve been at this for 14 years,” Plagmann said. “It’s about time.”

While Lindley was winning in Corning, Jay Haas was up the road in Rochester, New York grinding out an ugly victory at the Senior PGA Championship at Oak Hill, the very venue where in 1995 he could’ve kept the Ryder Cup in U.S. clutches. All he had to do was win his singles match against Philip Walton, the Irishman who became famous for his utter anonymity. But on the last hole, Haas popped up his tee shot, made bogey, lost the match, and watched with his teammates as Europe celebrated its reclamation of the Cup on American sod.

Revenge often makes for a compelling storyline. But how much revenge did Haas exact exactly? With respect to the Senior PGA – along with the U.S. Senior Open one of only two tournaments for players 50 and over that has genuine significance – you have to believe Haas would trade that individual honor in a New York minute for the crucial half point which eluded him and the U.S. 13 years ago. For the opportunity to relive those years and never hear how he single-handedly lost the Ryder Cup. That, by the way, isn’t true, but on your worst days it’d be hard not to believe. Sunday’s win for Haas was impressive on its own merits. But it neither can nor should be expected to magically make the disappointment of 1995 go away.

There is no Happily Ever After. Not in this life anyway. There is just our joy and sadness side by side, both of which in their own way help shape who we are. And there is today. So before it’s too late, grab your partner and dance.

She spins and she sways to whatever song plays without a care in the world

And I’m sittin’ here wearin’ the weight of the world on my shoulders

It’s been a long day and there’s still work to do

She’s pulling at me sayin’, “Dad, I need you

There’s a ball at the castle and I’ve been invited and I need to practice my dancin’

Oh, please, Daddy, please”

So I dance with Cinderella while she is here in my arms

‘Cause I know somethin’ the prince never knew

Oh, I dance with Cinderella, I don’t wanna miss even one song

‘Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight and she’ll be gone

She says he’s a nice guy and I’d be impressed

She wants to know if I approve of her dress

She says, “Dad, the prom is just one week away and I need to practice my dancin’

Oh, please, Daddy, please”

So I dance with Cinderella while she is here in my arms

‘Cause I know somethin’ the prince never knew

Oh, I dance with Cinderella, I don’t wanna miss even one song

‘Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight and she’ll be gone

She came home today with a ring on her hand

Just glowin’ and tellin’ us all they had planned

She says, “Dad, the wedding’s still six months away, but I need to practice my dancin’ Oh, please, Daddy, please”

So I dance with Cinderella while she is here in my arms

‘Cause I know somethin’ the prince never knew

Oh, I dance with Cinderella, I don’t wanna miss even one song

‘Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight and she’ll be gone

“Cinderella” – Steven Curtis Chapman