I'm back in Wildcat Country

 Hi, gang! 

After a disappearing act eighty miles southeast of Tucson for nearly three months and one more hospital stay, I return to Tucson and leave the Whetstone Mountains -- the partial roaming ground, at times, back in the mid-1860s of first Chief Cochise and then Geronimo himself -- behind. I wonder how any soldier in the U.S. Calvary and any Indian warrior, for that matter, could even shoot straight with the wind constantly blowing at 30 to 40 miles an hour with a gust out of the north, south, east, or west at 50 MPH.

How could any Soldier or Brave hit anything more than five feet away?

I, of course, don't have the answers to what happened some one hundred and sixty years ago. But here in 2023, this old man with Asthma just can't handle the dust particles, or whatever, that circulate daily, and to top it off, the area is close to 3,000 feet higher in elevation than my hometown of Tucson.

I didn't know upon my arrival, but I was quickly setting myself up for failure.

And to make matters worse, I decide to get a job and write for the local newspaper. My new job is to cover 13 sports. Sounds easy enough. Heck! That's what I did for a living in 1992...some thirty years ago, at the young age of 47!

One baseball game in the twilight hours on a beautiful March evening in Sierra Vista covering 5A school, Buena High School, the wind picked up, the cold air and the dust devils raced out toward center field. Five hours later, I was in the local hospital, once again experiencing breathing treatments every hour on the hour as the nurses frantically tried to get my breathing out of the low 80 range into what is normal for most people -- the mid-90s!

Pigpen Price's favorite song is Blowin' In The Wind by Bob Dylan.

It took days and enough drugs in me that would turn a javelina into a crazed animal-form look-a-like of Chief Cochise.

Now Chief Cochise, or Geronimo and his gang could brave anything (no pun intended), but in modern-day times this old man who is closing in on 80 years of age can't stop coughing long enough to fire a pistol inside a shooting range near I-10 and Houghton Road, an hour and 10 minutes due east to Buena High School -- the home of the Colts.

There is more to the story. There always is when you are dealing with Dan "Pigpen" Price.

So, I'll make it simple. I'm back in WILDCAT country.

And my Arizona Wildcats, later today, will play against UCLA in the championship game of the 2023 Pac-12 Tournament.

By the way, I'll see a Pulmonary doctor next month and try to convince him I'm just a crazy old baseball player that doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain -- I mean wind and the cold and the elements in a land where Geronimo use to roam and didn't even have a doctor. So I'll frantically try to convince the doctor that I do not need to carry an apparatus with me when I head out to third base, or worse yet, take the breathing tank with me from room to room in my house.

Geronimo died at the age of 79 on February 17, 1909.

I'll be 78 on July 2, 2023.

So, I'll be cheering on my Wildcats today, sitting on my sofa. And I'll stay out of the elements.

Once again. Go, Wildcats!

The wind-blown sportswriter.

P.S. Suzy and I will buy a wind gauge and insert it in the back patio.