The time to begin a difficult article on medical insurance had arrived, so I took a nap instead.  I dreamed not of premiums and pre-authorizations, but rather of basketball, of the exciting Los Angeles Lakers of my youth, and especially of their incredible announcer Chick Hearn, who animated the game with personality and brought it to life in my young mind.
         Chick is still there.  He has been the only Lakers' announcer since their inception in LA in 1961, and has broadcast over 3000 consecutive games.  He's over 80 now, but I don't know if he's slowing down any--he probably still describes the action with utter clarity at lightening speed, saying more in seconds than many novelists spit out in chapters.
         When I was a kid the Lakers had many great players, including Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Wilt Chamberlain.  Chick had affectionate nicknames for them all, weaving images of the home team as a kind of family, complete with the alliances, conflicts, and triumphs typical of families.  Triumphs...  I'll never forget squeezing the transistor radio late in bed, the Lakers in a "pressure cooker" championship game with (I think) the Boston Celtics.  Things looked grim:  down one point, we got the rebound with only seconds left--it was passed to West, who threw up a "prayer" from 70 feet and...it went in!  Chick went bonkers; no wonder he called West "Mr. Clutch."
         Chick has coined scores of colorful phrases.  When a player fakes before taking a jump shot and puts the opponent "into the popcorn machine," you know just what happened--the opponent was "hung out to dry."  A shot blocked with authority was "fly swatted" away.  Committing a small foul, a player may be "caught with his hand in the cookie jar" by a sharp referee.  Chick probably invented the phrase "slam dunk," and a player can only afford to shoot an "air ball" after the game is already "in the refrigerator."
         When the Lakers were on television, Chick's radio voice was always fed to the TV station in a "simulcast."  If the game was on national TV with some boring announcer, we'd turn off the sound and crank up the radio to hear Chick.  Phoenix Suns announcer Al McCoy said Chick "blazed the trail for how to broadcast a professional basketball game."
         I went back to LA for physical therapy school in the 1980s.  By this time I'd lost interest in most professional sports, but I still loved to hear Chick and watch the Lakers, who were enjoying another set of glory years with coach Pat Riley and star players Magic Johnson and Kareem Jabbar.  I'll never forget Magic flying down the court, drawing opponents to himself and then whipping spectacular line-drive passes to teammates in position for the easy shot.  That team really worked together, the way families need to.
         Chick always seemed concerned about both the players and fans, showing them respect and empathy.  He could also be critical though, expressing his opinion freely.  If Chick thought Kareem was taking too many "sky hook" shots and slowing down the game, you knew it--and I bet Kareem did, too.  Chick always did his homework and knew the opposing players well, along with their strengths and weaknesses.
         I admire the way Chick has loved and mastered his work, and am thankful that he enriched my life and inserted a bit more color into my soul than I might otherwise have had.
         I'll start that article on medical insurance soon.  In the meantime, dreams of
basketball remind me that we must never forget to play and have fun.