The Road to 40 Day 13/365: Modern throwbacks

by | May 23, 2025 | Strawberry-Filled Donuts

The past showed up this day to show their modern versions.

It started with basketball, because the NBA playoffs this year have been pretty good.

Growing up in the 90’s, I was naturally inclined to be amazed by Michael Jordan. But as I got to learn about basketball, I also got to see how other teams hated each other during this time.

Two of those teams were the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers.

Both of them have not been relevant for ages.

The Knicks were always a threat because of a kinda generational talent in Patrick Ewing, but the dude just cannot catch a break on the biggest games. After the Ewing era, they made splashy trades like the Stephon Marbury-Steve Francis experiment (which they probably thought would end up like Darius Garland-Donovan Mitchell in Cleveland today), and the Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire pairing. Lin-sanity was a thing, and there was that whole Kristaps Porzingis era as well.

For the Pacers, there was Reggie Miller, the guy who made 3-pointers look cool before Steph Curry made it what it is today. After Miller’s exit, there was the Malice in the Palace debacle, then the re-emergence of the big man with Roy Hibbert, and then the Paul George-led drive to contention. Then that’s pretty much it.

After their big stars of the 90s left, they were never really legitimate threats to the NBA championship, but their fan bases are always awesome.

This year, they meet again in the conference finals. They’re both led by players who were counted out and ridiculed because they weren’t supposed to be great – Tyrese Haliburton of the Pacers, and Jalen Brunson of the Knicks.

And yet, here they are. Both scrappy teams found ways to claw their way to this stage. On their way here, they collectively dropped the top-seeded Cavaliers, the defending champion Celtics, the 2021 champs Bucks, and the emerging Pistons.

On this day, I watched the Pacers overcome a 14-point deficit in under four minutes to push the game to overtime and win it. For perspective, the Elias Sports Bureau said that since 1998, teams who trailed by nine or more points in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime in the playoffs were 0-1,414.

Witnessing it in real time was pretty darn incredible. Since Dwyane Wade retired, I found myself not cheering for any team. But Tyrese Haliburton has been making a case since two years ago as one of my top fantasy players. This game just makes me want to believe that they could actually win it all.

Later in the day, I picked up Vino from school and he again asked walk home from the bus stop before our regular one.

On our way up, we saw a caterpillar making his cocoon. It looked like an invisible string and Vino was amazed and amused by what was going on before his eyes.
It’s difficult to see in the picture, but it was there.

No serious talks this time around, just him sharing things he learned about Brawl Stars, some things that happened in school, and him testing my football knowledge as if there was a lot.

We did this before with my dad and our dogs in our neighborhood back when we were younger. Then it just stopped.

For us, I’m letting him control what we are talking about so that he can enjoy sharing what’s on his mind instead of just listening to me being preachy about things.

 

After dinner, we got a call from a familiar and respected friend who we have not talked to in a while, Kuya Chito.

When went to college as a freshman, I sought to re-invent myself as a student-politician. I knew my limitations, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be smart enough to be great, nor was I athletic enough to leave my mark in sports. To prepare myself for the corporate world, I thought it would be great if I had “Student Council President” in my resume.

Working on that started very early, and Kuya Chito was one of the people who helped me build myself up for that role. He offered guidance in the thought process of making speeches, practical advice about life in general, a lot of encouragement, and of course, plenty of laughs because he is just a fun-natured person.

A year later, Che came to UST and our political party. She would be guided accordingly by Kuya Chito whenever he came by to visit.

Even after we graduated, we shared a special connection with Kuya Chito even if we didn’t get together all that much.

So getting a call from him last night because of Che’s comment in his FB story was a bit of a surprise, but definitely a pleasant one.

It’s nice that we (by we, I mean Che) can somehow return the favor by offering opinions and perspectives that he needs at this time.

I appreciate these friendships with our mentors after all these years, especially because they have treated us with respect through all these years – they gave us guidance when we needed it, and later treated us as peers when we found our way into the real world.

We were kids to them when we were kids, but as the years went by and we had our own adult experiences, they would sit down and drink with us to find out what they could learn from it.

And I feel like that’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re all just navigating life, but there’s no one way to live it. Just because we’re older doesn’t mean we’re always going to be better than people younger than us. We constantly have to learn from others as they will learn from us to be able to live our best lives. 

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