Butler

...faces Michigan State in less than two hours. I'll be rooting for them. Yesterday 29,000 -- yes, twenty-nine thousand! -- fans came to watch Butler PRACTICE. They are a genuine home team in a final four, which is rare. They are underdogs but the fan fav, I hope they go all the way. But I've been wrong throughout this tournament, rooting for the small schools.

Before the game, though, two races in prep for the Derby. I grew up on horse racing. Citation was my favorite horse.

51 years ago I hitched from Berkeley to Louisville to see the Kentucky Derby. My adventures, as noted her several times over the years, were recorded in a journal I still have. I was in Louisville on Derby day but broke. A kind gentleman on the street bought me several burgers for lunch and didn't proposition me for dessert, as a few did when I was on the road. This trip was a real change of life for me. In a few months, I'd be in the Army Security Agency, another transforming experience. All this beginning half a century ago. Ah, how time passes when you're having fun.

Derby trip journal excerpts (1959)