Golden State beats Houston last night! Cleveland beats Boston Sunday night! That means that at long last the interminable NBA season is drawing to a close. Game 1 of the Finals is Cleveland at Golden State Thursday at 8. Hope you can stay up to watch it. I won’t, but Designated Writers has its NBA team of experts working on a preview column as we speak. I hope…

But who was really the BIG winner this Memorial Day Weekend?

I’ll tell you, because I did something I don’t often do during non-football season or March Madness: turned on the television. And what do you know? John Wayne and his brothers, The Sons of Katie Elder, beat an evil cattle baron. And The Magnificent Seven beat an evil band of desperados. And Gary Cooper beat four bad guys at high noon. I didn’t watch the whole movies but I did watch the ends just to make sure the good guys won again.

It’s the same thing our friend and journalistic icon, the late Wiley Hilburn, did when he kept reading those World War II books: he always wanted to make sure sure sure America won. (I do the same thing and started this weekend on “The Longest Winter” by Alex Kershaw, about the Battle of the Bulge. My son Casey gave it to me because he knows I am a sick man — and that I just got through reading “Snow and Steel” by the nice people at the Oxford Library and it’s about…the Battle of the Bulge. Casey knows how I feel about WWII: you can’t be too careful.

Speaking of The Big One, the HDNET movie channel will air War Stories: Battles of WWII Movie Marathon, June 4-7, beginning each night at 7 our time. Two movies a night. You can watch those, read, or watch the NBA Finals, which will be the only reality TV; we know who wins WWII. But because of who did, I never get tired or reading about it or of “watching about” it.

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