The other day I heard from my friend Chris. We've known each other since high school and over the years, have been in and out of touch. By coincidence, he e-mailed me several days before Super Tuesday and I was sure it had to do with the election. It didn't. He wrote regarding the new Herbie Hancock CD, River: The Joni Letters. We both love jazz and he wanted to share this new CD, one of his top three of all time which is saying a lot. Also, by coincidence, I had just seen Herbie Hancock in the Yes We Can video and passed along the link.
The point to all this is that I had been thinking of Chris lately because years before, when Barack Obama was teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, Chris played basketball with him at a regular weekly game. I thought, how cool is that...my friend played basketball with the next President of the United States.
Chris wrote back, talking about those days on the court with Barack Obama before he ran for anything. I thought it gave great insight into the man's character, in an era of spin and news cycles. This metaphor matters, which is why I'm sharing Chris' e-mail below.
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