Ranking greatest (and worst) generations

By now, we're indoctrinated: The people who fought in World War II, then returned to build the United States into the greatest nation in the world are "The Greatest Generation."

All others must bow down to them, because they're clearly the . . . no! Wait a minute!

Who gave former NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw the right to make that decision?

Maybe Brokaw is just a groupie for that generation. Maybe it's time for someone with a neutral viewpoint (me) to rank the living generations.

Based on the always-accurate pros vs. cons standard, here's the ranking of the five current generations (excluding those born after 2005). If you disagree with me, it's probably because you're typical of your generation.

Away we go . . .

5. Generation X (Born 1965-80). Is it too late to label this "The Worst Generation?" They followed the baby boomers and spent the 1980s and part of the 1990s whining about it while playing video games, listening to grunge music, living at their parents' homes and complaining some more.

Pros: Made hip-hop music culturally popular, played a lot of video games.

Cons: Played a lot of video games, whined a lot, got caught between self-important baby boomers and new-world millennials. Gave us Adam Sandler. I love some Gen-Xers, but face it . . . they'll probably whine about this, too.

4. Silent Generation (Born 1928-45). They were between the two most-hyped generations in American history.

Pros: Many of them still read the Daily Republic, so . . . no need to insult them. And Don Draper on "Mad Men" was part of this generation, as were my parents.

Cons: Fought the "forgotten war" (Korea) to a tie, teamed with the Greatest Generation to oppose baby boomers, gave us no presidents (Greatest Generation provided seven, baby boomers three so far). Elected Richard Nixon president. Twice.

3. Baby Boomers (Born 1946-64). If you don't think baby boomers were important, just ask one. They'll tell you about Woodstock, the Vietnam War, the Beatles, the Civil Rights movement, television, blah, blah, blah. This is my generation, but boy are we a bunch of self-important bloviators.

Pros: See above. Also created the Internet, paving the way for the information revolution. Made rock music the dominant cultural influence. Gave us Spielberg, Letterman, Oprah, Ali and Joe Montana.

Cons: Rewrite history too often to inflate own importance, selfish, doubled the divorce rate of their parents, still obsessed with acting young, even though they're not.

2. Greatest Generation (Born 1901-27). A naming error, based on my rankings, but it's clear how they get that label.

Pros: Survived the Depression, fought and won World War II, rebuilt Europe and led the U.S. economy to the top of the world after the war. Also hired great PR man in Brokaw.

Cons: Had no other choice with the Depression and World War II – they had to survive and fight, so I'm not sure they should get so much credit for that. And they turned a blind eye to racial and sexual discrimination, forcing baby boomers to deal with it and then brag about it for decades. A great generation and worthy of admiration. But overrated.

1. Millennials (Born 1981-2004). The generation that is now moving into power in America, with several decades of dominance to come. Often criticized as lazy and entitled, but that's usually by baby boomers (who think they're too important) and Gen-Xers (who are whiners). My view? I welcome our new overlords.

Pros: Creative thinkers who consider innovation natural. Motivated by relationships and happiness, rather than job security. Accepting of those who are different. Changed how we communicate by embracing and enhancing all forms of new media.

Cons: Still live in their parents' house at 30. Haven't produced a significant political leader (oldest member of generation is just 34, though). Reality TV watchers. Some confusing style choices (in the eyes of a baby boomer). Justin Bieber.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor and Baby Boomer. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

New planet will make you younger, heavier

In case you missed the big news, we have a new planetary relative: Earth's "bigger, older cousin."

Mrs. Brad and I are already planning a vacation to Planet Oliver (explanation in next paragraph), where I will be heavier and younger (explanation later).

But still . . . a planetary relative! It's like finding out you have a cousin that you didn't know about, like when Oliver joined the rest of the kids on "The Brady Bunch." (That's the explanation!) Or when Chachi moved in with Fonzie on "Happy Days." Or even when Will came west to live with Carlton's family on "Fresh Prince of Bel Air."

Cousins are fun!

The idea that it's a relative comes from NASA, which is smart enough to get a man to the moon and back several times, although in that Tom Hanks movie, it almost didn't work. But you're just trying to distract me by mentioning Ed Harris.

NASA announced a few weeks ago that its Kepler spacecraft (named after former Major League Baseball star Gabe Kapler) discovered a new planet that's a lot like Earth. It's in the constellation Cygnas (named after a health care company) and is located in an area where water is possible, which is more than you can say about a lot of California right now.

Suffice to say, it was big news for the space folks.

"Today, the Earth is a little less lonely," said NASA researcher Jon Jenkins, who didn't address rumors that Earth actually found it's new connection through FarmersOnly.com, the website with talking dogs.

NASA can't tell whether Planet Oliver actually has water or air, but it may have convenience stores where you can overpay for bottled water and buy some air, so it's got that going for it.

The best news, though, is that the planet, officially named Kepler-452b (but commonly called Planet Oliver), is just 1,400 light-years away. I'm not an expert in scientific distances, but I presume that "light-years" are shorter than regular years, kind of a distance equivalent of light beer and light yogurt. So it doesn't seem that far away.

We'll visit.

Jenkins said the planet "almost certainly has an atmosphere," although he didn't clarify if it would be a positive or negative atmosphere, which would have a major effect on whether Mrs. Brad and I would want to make repeat visits to Planet Oliver.

But getting back to what we started talking about, an interesting issue is that gravity on Planet Oliver is thought to be about double that of Earth, which means we would weigh twice as much and would likely need bigger pants, a problem that would be solved by some big-and-tall stores.

The other intriguing side issue is that it takes 385 days to circle its "sun," which means if you lived 50 Earth years, you would only be about 47 on Planet Oliver.

I don't see any negatives. A planet close enough for "light" travel, a new market for big-and-tall clothing stores, a place where you're younger and a chance to meet a long-lost planetary cousin.

I just don't know why you insisted on bringing up Gabe Kapler, light beer and FarmersOnly.com.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Troy, me and the magical device

It was the summer before fifth grade when my best friend, Troy, and I combined our money and sent away for the greatest item ever. Troy, who lived down the street, saw it in a comic book: A portable communication device.

It was perfect. Long before the cellphone era, we could talk at any time. While he was in his house and I was in mine. A space-age miracle!

It cost $3, plus shipping and handling. That was serious money, but worth it.

The drawing in the advertisement in the back of the "Archie" comic book looked like something from a sci-fi movie. It showed two people, in two different buildings, talking into metallic devices.

It was going to be awesome. While stuck at home – maybe because we were in trouble and couldn't go out, maybe because we were in our bedrooms but not ready to sleep – we could talk. We didn't really know what we'd talk about, since our telephone conversations were limited to "Hey, wanna play?" "OK. Your house?" "OK." "Bye."

But we could. It opened other possibilities, too – could we leave it in our sisters' bedrooms like a bug? Could we sneak it to school and communicate from class to class?

We placed our order around the end of the school year, cramming three crumpled dollar bills and a handful of change (for shipping and handling) into an envelope, along with the proof of purchase stamp from the comic book. We mailed it to New York or Pennsylvania or somewhere far from Northern California. Then we waited.

That summer, Troy and I played sports, built a fort and threw our G.I. Joes over my house to each other, pretending they had fallen out of airplanes. We played hide-and-seek with the neighbor kids. We rode our bikes to Country Club Market, a few miles away. We played wiffle ball. We built a "ladder" on the tree that grew over our fort, allowing us to see into my backyard from the woods behind it. I checked the mailbox every day, waiting for both the communication devices.

Finally, a plain box arrived. The communication devices!

I called Troy (maybe the last time we'd need to use the phone?) and he raced to my house. We tore off the paper, then ripped open the box. This was going to be the night we could talk to each other from our bedrooms, several houses away. We pulled the magic item out and examined it.

It was two aluminum cups with handles. Attaching them was a 3-foot-long string. The instructions said to extend the string, then talk into one device.

What?

We spent $3 of our hard-earned cash to buy a glorified Dixie cup communicator, where you connected to cups with a string and talked?

It would work to communicate "from house to house" only if your houses were nearly touching each other and your windows were opposite each other. In that case, the communication device was unnecessary. You could just talk.

We were disappointed. And ripped-off. The product wasn't what the advertisement suggested.

As wiser soon-to-be-fifth-graders, we learned that things weren't always what they promised, especially when they were in the back of a comic book.

It was a hard lesson.

But just to be sure, we went ahead and ordered the "X-ray glasses" in the back of the same comic book. They could see through women's clothes!

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Characters continue after spotlight fades

One-hit wonder author Harper Lee last week dropped her biggest bombshell since she revealed that "To Kill a Mockingbird" wasn't a hunting book. In her sequel to her only novel, Lee presents "TKAM" (in the publishing industry, we love acronyms) hero Atticus Finch as a racist.

Yes, the character that Gregory Peck portrayed in the iconic movie turned into an angry geezer who railed against African-Americans two decades after he defended an innocent man in "TKAM." While many readers and fans of the movie were shocked, I suspect that the family of the man he defended, Tom Robinson, wasn't. After all, did you see the all-white jury that Finch got seated to hear Robinson's case? And his stunning lack of effort to get DNA evidence admitted?

I'm not saying he threw the case, but . . .

The hubbub over the change in Finch's character got me thinking about the other fictional characters who are stuck in time by readers or moviegoers. Many of them changed, but their new personas were ignored by readers.

For instance, did you know that E.T.'s life dramatically changed after the little alien disappeared into the spaceship at the end of the eponymous movie? Sadly, upon returning to their home planet, E.T.'s fellow travelers denied that they visited Earth and E.T. was locked up and deprived of Reece's Pieces. The others claimed the "Earth visit" was a stunt filmed on a sound stage in their version of Hollywood. E.T. finished his life in disgrace.

E.T. is not alone in his shocking change of fate. Here are some other famous fictional characters whose post-story life took surprising turns.

Cat in the Hat: Famed for bringing his sidekicks (Thing One and Thing Two) to wreck the home of Sally and her brother, the Cat is widely viewed as an irritating interloper. But in "Catnip: My Story of Fame, Blame and Shame," the Cat revealed that his infamous visit on that rainy day was fueled by drugs and ended up with him eating the fish that objected to his presence. Cat later cleaned up and started the nonprofit foundation Panthers Urging Recovery for Relatives (PURR), which lobbied against Big Catnip.

Samantha Stevens: The main character in "Bewitched," the popular 1960s television show, met a surprising and shocking end: She was burned at the stake in 1972.

The Little Engine that Could: Famous for his catchphrase "I think I can . . . I know I can," the LETC became a favorite speaker on the motivational circuit, making more than 200 appearances a year during the 1990s. As rumors of performance-enhancing drug use surfaced, he challenged reporters to "kiss my caboose." The New York Times investigated LETC and discovered that he profited from electrical power in his famous ride over the mountain. LETC is currently petitioning to be able to return to the rails, but has been denied.

Bambi: The star of the beloved Disney children's story married on-screen flame (no pun intended) Faline after filming and moved north to escape attention. Way north. A few years later, their first child was born, a red-nosed deer named Rudolph, who followed Bambi into show business. Bambi died in 1979 and was served as the main dish at a midwinter banquet at a Moose lodge.

Dorothy: The protagonist in "The Wizard of Oz" saw a dramatic change in her life after she returned to Kansas. She became an Academy Award-winning actress who struggled in her personal life, marrying five times and ultimately dying of a drug overdose at age 47. She is survived by her daughter, Liza.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Learning about love from a TV dating show

I've got plenty of excuses – it doesn't mean anything. I do it as a tradeoff for the sports that Mrs. Brad watches. Our house is small, so I can't really ignore it. But the next paragraph is the truth.

I watch "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette."

With Mrs. Brad, of course. Because, well . . .  re-read the first paragraph.

In case you don't know about the two television shows (really one show, alternating between seasons) here is a brief description: One person "dates" 25 people of the opposite sex, eliminating bad prospects each week until there's just one. The final show is set up to include a dramatic proposal.

And there's also this: The contestants are universally young, attractive and white (despite efforts to bring diversity, the top 10 or so are always white. And they're always in their 20s and 30s. But they're especially white).

The demographic of the viewers, based on logic and audiences at their live shows (a "tell-all" episode with the losers and the finale) is suburban women, 25 to 60. And their beat-down spouses (see first paragraph).

It's a stupid show, which I said several times to Mrs. Brad before learning to keep quiet. However, it does provide some insight into what people – at least the producers of the show – think that the audience believes.

At least that's what I tell myself as I write this, inviting humiliation.

Some examples of "Bachelor/Bachelorette" dating philosophies:

1. People should accept "falling in love" with someone who is "dating" (and making out) with two dozen other people. To be jealous or upset reveals that you don't know how to play the game (or in "Bachelor"-speak, you might not be there for the "right reasons."). This is all despite the fact that accepting that kind of behavior in real life is sociopathic.

2. The way to "take the next step" and "open up" to someone is to tell them something that you haven't regularly told others. Maybe it's that you cheated on your spouse and were thrown out. Maybe it's that your dog died when you were 9 and you are still heartbroken. Maybe it's that you have three elbows. Anything. But tell them something secret and you've really taken the next step.

3. Men who cry are sensitive. Regardless of whether they're jerks. If they cry, they're sensitive. Women apparently love that.

4. The real way to have a romantic date is to have an iconic spot to yourself and then have a popular band (usually one I've never heard of) play a song while you dance. That's romantic, even though it takes a TV network and a team of people working for the producer to make it happen.

5. The poor beautiful young people (often models or fitness instructors) who get eliminated on the show are crushed because they thought this was their true love, and because they'll never get another shot at finding someone because they're just young, wealthy and have been on TV for several weeks.

6. The audience believes that men sometimes actually sit around and talk about how they're falling in love with a woman in the same way that 13-year-old girls talk.

It's a ridiculous show with an absurd premise. I just hope Kaitlyn finds true love with Nick, Shawn or Ben!

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Cars, buses, trains and me: A memoir

On a ride home on BART last week, I began to sweat. Since I'm a diabetic, my first presumption of every significant sweating episode is that I have low blood sugar – it's a common symptom.

I had tested my blood before I left my office in San Francisco. It was fine. But now I was sweating. Profusely.

And it got worse. I could feel perspiration trickling down my back. And my front. Fortunately, I was wearing a black shirt, so it wasn't obvious. But I wondered if other riders noticed and felt the anxiety that comes with worrying about your health.

We pulled into the North Concord station and I stood up. Then I heard another rider shout. "How about someone turns on the mother #%$*ing air conditioner?"

Ah, public transit.

I walked out of the car and felt like I walked into a refrigerator. A cool day that I later realized was 95 degrees.

How hot was it on my BART car? One-hundred-five degrees? Hotter?

Ah, public transit.

My split shift of a pair of two-month stints of commuting on public transportation ended July 1 when my company reopened our office in Walnut Creek.  It gave me back that most American of privileges – the right to drive my car 50 minutes each way to work, rather than taking public transit. For many of my co-workers,  some of whom rode BART for a decade, it was like getting out of prison. For me, it was more like the end of an experiment.

BART wasn't new. Mrs. Brad and I have long been clients, having taken it on every trip to the interior Bay Area since the 1990s. We take BART to every Giants game, Pier 39 visit and Christmas shopping excursion. We take BART to the airports. We take BART to Warriors games.

But I never used it as a commuter until last fall, when I started working in San Francisco – before a temporary move to Walnut Creek. For the first two months of heading to San Francisco, I caught the Solano Express bus from Suisun City to the El Cerrito del Norte BART station, where I transferred to ride BART into the city. At night, it was the reverse.

Then it ended for four months, when some of us were temporarily in Walnut Creek and blissfully drove our cars. Then we moved back to San Francisco while our office was renovated and I changed my commute-to-the-city plan. This time, I drove to the North Concord BART station, then rode into the city.

People who have commuted that way for years consider me a lightweight. The hardcore folks – who take the bus to BART – scoff at my softness. And they're right.

But as I leave the temporary public transit commute grind, I gained four important observations:

• BART is less crazy during commute hours. Mrs. Brad and I encounter strange situations – people shouting, aggressively asking for money, acting erratically – nearly every time we take BART to a game on a weekend. In more than 150 trips during commute hours, I had one such situation, and it wasn't bad. The busier it is, the less crazy it is.

• Hard-core public transportation commuters take the bus, too. I admire anyone who regularly gets to the bus stop at 6 a.m., rides 45 minutes and then scrambles into a BART station to ride some more; only to do the reverse in the evening. The fact that it was a semi-regular concurrence for people to shout out displeasure at a driver – as if they were unable to avoid expressing their thoughts – was understandable. They were passengers for hours. Every day.

• Public transportation really works. A train from North Concord stops in San Francisco 45 minute later. It's a miracle.

• Most importantly, despite the previous three points, I'm really grateful that I'll be driving my car to work. Because I'm an American.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Trains, sports memories and 'whitesploitation'

It's the final Sunday of the first half of the last year of the first half of the second decade of the first century of the third millennium. What better time to empty the columnist's notebook with the topics du jour?

Let's roll . . .

• • •

Of all the things I like about living where I live – the weather, the diversity, the proximity to the Bay Area and Sacramento, the opportunity to live near Tony Wade – there's perhaps nothing as great as this: The proximity to the train tracks.

Sure, it's a stereotype. But don't you love the sound of the train – whether it's an Amtrak passenger train or a freight train – as it goes past? When Mrs. Brad and I moved into our house in the early 1990s, a passing train rocked the house the first night. The doors rattled. The TV was drowned out.

It was awesome.

There are times when it's not: When it makes it impossible for me to hear the announcers while I watch "Wipeout" or "The Bachelorette." When the engineer hits the horn for several seconds in the middle of the night. When I'm stuck in Folsom Prison and time keeps draggin' on.

But the rest of the time, the 99 percent of the times the train goes through central Solano County? Fantastic.

• • •

Top five: My favorite sports seasons:

5. Warriors 2006-07. The "We Believe" team was the opposite if this year's club – a veteran, surly, cocky team with a chip on its shoulder. They made the playoffs for the first time in 13 years and stunned the top-seeded Mavericks in the first round.

4. Giants 2014. The third championship in five seasons for the Giants had the greatest postseason performance I've ever seen: Madison Bumgarner's unbelievable World Series pitching.

3. 49ers 1989-90. The second of their back-to-back titles and fourth of the decade was special because of that – and I got to cover Super Bowl XXIV in New Orleans.

2. Giants 2010. No Giants fan will forget the year they finally broke through. As late as September, it seemed unlikely they'd make the postseason. Then they won. Unbelievable.

1. Warriors 2014-15. A year where a team that struggled for decades emerged as the best, most entertaining team in the sport. The Warriors were the best team in each month of the season. They were the best offensive team. They were the best defensive team. They were unselfish. They capped it with a title.

• • •

If "Shaft," "Superfly" and "Black Caesar" are prime examples of "blaxploitation" films, are TV shows like "Downton Abbey" examples of "whitesploitation?"

Just wondering.

• • •

Whatever happened to motel beds that vibrated?

When I was a kid, every cheap roadside motel where my family stayed on our vacations had a "massage" bed. You put in a quarter (or two, if the first one didn't work) and the bed started vibrating and making a grinding noise. Not a massage by any means.

Like every family that wasted a quarter in those beds, we had the same experience every time. The kids would talk our parents into putting in money, then get bored and go swimming or to play with the ice machine. Our parents were left in the room with the noisy, bouncing bed that drowned out the TV while they tried to watch the local news.

I guess I know why those beds are gone. They were stupid.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Join me in making America great again

I've never been particularly good at standing up to peer pressure, which is why I followed all my friends off the bridge during the famous 1985 Lemming Incident. That was, of course, a couple of years after I joined everybody that one night and Wang Chunged.

So when it became obvious that I was in danger of being the last person in America who wasn't a Republican candidate for president, I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to jump in.

My name is Brad Stanhope and I'm running for president.

I guess the last straw was when Donald Trump announced his candidacy. I'm not sure what he's done the past 30 years, but he was the owner of the United States Football League's New Jersey Generals. And a guy who signed Herschel Walker and Doug Flutie to big contracts, then saw his league go out of  business, can't be our next president. Who's next, J. William Oldenburg? (He owned the Los Angeles Express.)

To be fair, I have some strong opinions on what needs to happen in this country over the next eight years. (And let's face it, I am likely a two-term president, like Grover Cleveland, the second greatest character named "Grover" in American history.)

As I officially announce my candidacy (do you have to file anything?), let me lay out a few key platform issues for my campaign:

Flying cars. We've been promised them for generations and they're still not here. We can watch movies on our hand-held telephones, but we can't fly a car? I don't buy it. During the Stanhope administration, we'll pour billions into flying cars to fulfill the promise of America.

A border fence. Trump suggested this at his announcement, saying he wanted to build one along the Mexican border and force Mexico to pay for it. Ridiculous, right? It should obviously go on our northern border. Canadians are so nice, they'll offer to pay for it so they don't appear rude. Who is a bigger threat: Mexico or Canada? Let's put it this way, who sent Justin Bieber? Who sent Pamela Anderson? Doug Henning? Who passes off ham as "bacon"? Under President Stanhope, we'll have a border protecting our sovereignty from the enemies in Canada.

Phone service changes. When you call a "help" line, you will get help under the Stanhope monarchy. Got a problem with your television service? Phone line? Medical bill? Every phone system that offers "help" will be required to have several actual humans on duty to answer questions, and all you have to do is press "zero." Agree? Vote Stanhope.

Cuts to government programs you don't like, more money for those you like. I could be more specific, but there's no need. Suffice to say, you will agree with me. Under the Stanhope dictatorship, things will be a lot better.

Speed limit requirements. This isn't about keeping people from speeding. It's more about issuing more tickets for those who drive 58 mph in the fast lane when the speed limit is 70 mph. Under a Stanhope police state, officers will issue tickets for anyone who drives more than 10 mph outside the posted limit. Unless, you know, I'm really in a hurry.

Not flushing public (or private) toilets. Two words: Death penalty.

Vote for me and see how the nation gets turned around.

If it doesn't work?

Two more words: Invade Canada (although we'll have to scale the fence first).

I look forward to being your overlord.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Up Cache Creek without a paddle

Maybe we should have paid more attention to the fact that the liability release we had to sign mentioned the word "death" seven times. (Rafting tip: Pay attention to the details.)

It was a week ago, on a camping trip with folks from Mrs. Brad's office, a friendly, enthusiastic bunch that was ready to have fun floating down Cache Creek in rafts.

At least I thought it would involve "floating." Mostly it involved seconds of terror preceded by minutes of dread.

I'll spare you the details, kind of. Put it this way: At the first set of serious rapids, Mrs. Brad was thrown out of the raft, got her foot temporarily caught in ropes attached to the raft and lost her beloved Giants cap. (Rafting tip: Don't wear treasured caps.) She was banged up, but managed to get back in the raft, barely, before we hit some more rapids.

The second major set of rapids, known as "the widowmaker," ejected me. I ricocheted for 150 yards, bouncing off rocks and gasping for air as I was dragged under. I, too, lost my Giants cap. (Rafting tip: See previous tip about caps.) And when I finally got to a spot with slower water, Mrs. Brad was nowhere to be found. She was stranded atop a rock upriver and had to be freed. Yikes.

We spent the next couple of hours cursing the rapids, trying to keep the raft straight, waiting for the finish and getting sunburned, since our sunblock washed off. (Rafting tip: Bring sunscreen and reapply during a break.) Finally, we neared the end . . . and were suddenly driven into the bank of the river by the current. We shot toward a tree and ducked to avoid being swept out by branches. The tree (I presume) then grabbed our raft and flipped us into the river, much like its predecessor in "The Wizard of Oz." We both came up gasping, with Mrs. Brad losing both her sunglasses and her oar. (Rafting tip: Don't wear sunglasses that you're not prepared to lose.)

We got back in and made it to the finish, with blistering sunburns, no caps and no sunglasses. Oh, and after we collected ourselves, we discovered that my insulin pump, a piece of medical equipment that costs thousands of dollars, was broken. (Rafting tip: Remove expensive items that can be water-damaged.)

Total cost: Two caps, sunglasses, insulin pump, sunburns, multiple bruises, a scratched face. (Rafting tip: Wear a hockey goalie mask.)

As we walked into camp, we looked like George Washington's army after Valley Forge. People were limping, holding ice packs on their hips, with bandages wrapped around their heads. (OK, maybe not the last one.) But as we shared experiences, we laughed.

A few people made it through undamaged, but others bounced off several rocks with their tailbones. Some people pulled their rafts out and caught rides back.

Talking about the woes made the frustration of the past few hours more laughable than lamentable. The fact that my insulin pump broke was a bit of a medical problem, but we survived it.

The people were great. But was the raft trip a disaster? No.

Like many miserable experiences, it is less daunting in the rear-view mirror. It became a source of funny stories. Because we survived, which created a sense of community (which, I presume, was the goal).

Will we do it again?

(Final rafting tip: Don't let the enjoyable memory make you forget the undesirable experience.)

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Strange days for Warriors fans

Sports fans are strange. They love success, but resent those who celebrate it with them.

Take the Golden State Warriors, who play the second game Sunday in a previously unthinkable NBA Finals. After years as a Bay Area sports version of that cool band with a few hardcore fans, they're now The Black Eyed Peas. Everybody likes them. That brings some secret resentment from those who followed the team through the lean years. And lean decades.

Those Warriors fans are not alone. Sports fans' passion for their team somehow grows when the team is bad. Fans of great teams share  joy, but bad teams' fans share a deeper connection: Pain.

Don't think so? Consider the Oakland Raiders, whose fans become more committed to the team with each passing bad year. They know that it will eventually turn around and then they'll be on top of the world. It has to, right? Right?

When a long-suffering team finally wins, fans come out of the woodwork. To the hard-core fans, those other fans are front-runners. Bandwagon-jumpers. They weren't there when things were bad, so they are resented.

We've seen it in the Bay Area. The San Francisco Giants are the most popular team in the region after winning three World Series. They routinely sold out their ballpark since 2000, so it's not just the past five years that have brought popularity, but it certainly exploded. Go on Facebook and you see posts about the Giants. Go to the grocery store and you see people wearing the T-shirts. Look around your neighborhood and you see Giants license plate holders. Everybody's a fan.

Of course. They're winning.

Now we have the Warriors. They're different from the Giants because for the past 25 years, Warriors fans were the most passionate, supportive fans in the NBA. Win (rarely), lose (almost always) or Ty(rone Hill, a one-time draft pick), fans turned out to watch and cheer. Even when they were terrible, they had a passionate core.

While maybe 500,000 different people attended Giants games each year, it felt like 30,000 people attended Warriors games – 17,000 at a time. The TV ratings were minuscule.

This year it changed. The Warriors have the NBA's most valuable player. They have some of the league's most exciting players. They have a charismatic coach. The vibe is ridiculous. Suddenly, everyone's a Warriors fan.

Which makes the core fans uncomfortable. Guys like my friends Danny, Que and Jayson. Or Vickie, who attended Thursday's game. And all the other people who attended games in 1996 and 2000 and 2006 and watched losing seasons.

They know that people who talk about how they loved Rick Barry and the Run TMC days don't remember the past 10 years – when Jason Richardson was the team's only star and when Mike Dunleavy was a heralded draft pick. They don't remember when Kalenna Azubuike came up from the D-League or when Muggsy and Bimbo were the point guards. They don't remember Anthony Randolph's potential or Andres Biedrens' horrible free throws.

But now they're all in, which is good news: Because it means the Warriors are winning. And if they cap off one of the greatest seasons in NBA history with a championship, those fans will get the licence plate holders, foam fingers, championship T-shirts and post about the team on Facebook.

Which is all good for Warriors fans. Because it means a championship.

This is the dream, but it feels like there are a lot of uninvited guests. Hard-core Warriors fans may have to get used to the company.

The band that used to be a secret is now winning Grammy Awards.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.