LITTLE LEAGUE

Sometimes, with the advent of summer, my thoughts turn to baseball. Not myself playing baseball—even though I did—but more so for the dozen years that I coached Little League baseball in the city where we lived. I was in my early thirties, with a young boy of my own playing, but that wasn’t the only reason I coached, I truly loved the game. In all actuality, my son would have been treated more fairly with someone who wasn’t his dad. As is all too often the case, I was harder on him than the others.

Coaching was much easier back in those days. All the boys were on a learning curve when it came to the basics of the game, but in the end, we played to win and that was okay. We learned to be good winners, and oh yes, we were good losers, too. If you didn’t practice with the team, you didn’t play with the team, and the parents were fine with that. If the boys were goofing off, they got reprimanded and the parents were okay with that, too. It was a Monday through Thursday thing so the boys could be with their families on the weekends.

We never had an issue with girls wanting to be part of the team. There was a great softball program for the girls and they loved it. My daughters played in it for years. Although I did have an assistant, sometimes I was alone with the boys, or he was. We never had to worry about suspicious parents thinking we could be abusive to their boys. They trusted us, and we respected that trust so much. I never had parents calling me and asking, “Why their boy was or wasn’t playing?” We all knew the rules and we followed them. No angry dads telling me how to coach the game; no moms yelling at me for disciplining their child; nobody calling the family lawyer on us, but sadly, that has all changed.

I have always felt that sports are such a character builder in young people as they are growing up. You learn to interact and function with others and to be a team. Later in life, those same kids, when they go out into the business end of world, will find out how important that is. You learn to be gracious winners, knowing that winning that game wasn’t just important to you—it was important to those kids on the other team to taste victory, also. When the tables were turned and you lost, you learned to be good losers and learn from your mistakes. Winning and losing—again—a huge part of life.

Here is the crux of my story. A few years ago, late in the evening, I received a call from a man who identified himself as one of the kids who played ball for me for many years. Keep in mind, that was thirty some years ago. This man had just left his son’s little league game and on the way home, he said, he started thinking about our team way back then. So he told his son about our team, and the fun we had. After he got home, he said he couldn’t stop thinking about it, so he picked up the phone and called me, just to say thanks. I teared up after I hung up the phone. Tears of pride for a seemingly obscure accomplishment in a day gone by. Before you accuse me of getting all sanctimonious on you, I want you to know my story isn’t unique; it’s done every day in this world, by dads and moms everywhere. I just want them to know how important it is in the lives of those kids—who will never forget you.

JUNE

                                                        

 How well I remember the first days of June back when I was a budding teenager. School was out, and yes it was a happy day indeed. That elusive summer vacation I had day-dreamed about while staring out the classroom window, was now a delicious reality. When it finally came I was like a newborn calf, freed from the pen, and out to the summer pastures for the first time, and it was time to kick up my heels. There was no limit to what I was going to accomplish that summer and my mind was a virtual cornucopia of events that I had thought about since spring had sprung. Like Louie sang in his song, “I saw skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed days and the dark sacred nights.” It truly was a wonderful world.

I never made elaborate plans; I just went with the flow from swimming holes to baseball diamonds, from homemade rafts down the river, to days of just kicking a can down a dusty road with a blade of grass hanging from the corner of my mouth, and my dog by my side. Rainy days were tragic wasted days, as there were no inside activities in my plans. But then as sure as the clock slowly ticks forward and our lives spin hopelessly onward, that magical month of June that sets the stage for all of summer, evaporated and was gone. There would be no recouping the days; I could only wait for time to let it roll around once more. Always, I had the realization in the back of my mind that soon the days of my youth would not be infinite, and all to soon June would be just another warm summer month that I would be destined to work away someplace just to survive.

But then came retirement and every day was a day off, and I was obsessed with recapturing my carefree youth once more, but that was then, and now is now, and I found that nothing is the same anymore. My imagination does not let me live in that care free world I was in back then-- just remember it. All to soon the last days of June will come around, and I will have no idea what I did with the first days of the month. My life still seems to be on that same fast track, when I really want it to be on the slow track, but I don’t know how to get there or even if I can. I remember an old song sung by Waylon Jennings called “Stop the world and let me off.” Maybe that would be the answer huh? Just let me be frozen in time for a while on a warm June day, lying on my back on a lush green lawn, while overhead white puffy clouds drift across an endless blue sky.

Celia Thaxter said,  “It will be eternal summer in the grateful heart.” How well I remember when I first fell in love in summer. My heart was so full to overflowing back then-- that just another drop of love and adventure would have made it spill over. Every day was a new and exciting chapter for me. But you can’t stop the world from tilting and spinning and all to soon the days grow shorter. All to soon summer ends, like your childhood and your innocent’s. It’s not one summer that defines you, however, but the sum total of all of your summers that will complete you and write your story. So you persevere, waiting for the next summer to roll around. Life does have its encores’--- you just have to keep applauding. 

FIFTY FIVE YEARS AGO

                                              

I remember that day as if it was yesterday but in all actuality it was fifty-five years ago. I had spent the night before, packing my meager possessions in a cardboard box because I didn’t own any luggage. Graduation had come and gone and no longer was I a part of that group of young people and that school that we had spent so many years at. In a way I wasn’t even any longer part of the family that raised me. Oh, I could come and visit but someone else would now have my spot at the table. My father had told me it was time to leave and grow up. Fleeting memories of the school sports events, the high school dances and days in those busy classrooms together.  It was all a confusing memory, flashing in my head like strobe lights, on and off. We were like young birds leaving the nest, going in four different directions, destined for whatever was waiting for us in that scary world out there. The evening before this early morning, I had walked back over to the school one last time and looked at the darkened classrooms and peeked through the chained doors. The empty hallways gave off an eerie aura that gave me a chill. Yes, it was time to say goodbye.

I left my parent’s house the next morning sneaking out early so as not to have to say any tearful goodbyes to my parents and siblings. I walked down the dirt driveway from our house heading for the bus station full of mixed feelings. Optimism for my life ahead and sadness for leaving the only way of life I had ever known. I heard a noise and turning around I saw my stepmother standing on the top step holding her housecoat tight to her bosom in the early morning cold. “Don’t forget us”, she said, a sob choking her voice. For a second I wanted to run back and hug her but I knew I would cry and I didn’t want that. I was a young man now and it was time to grow up and just say goodbye. I waved and blew her a kiss and continued walking away.

So much has happened since then. Falling in love and taking a wife and being blessed with three children. Forty some years of working and bringing home the bacon, three houses and countless friends and neighbors. I remember watching our children grow up and then them going out into the world, much the same way I did and praying softly that God would help them find their way, much as I had. Then at last turning to her and saying, “Now it’s our turn my love.”

Ten wonderful years together, at the lake place we had built, shoulder to shoulder, fulfilling another dream we shared, A place where everyday was Saturday and those kids we had pinned our hopes on, would come with those wonderful grandkids we couldn’t get enough of.  In the words of the song maker. “We had joy we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.” So many great days on the lake fishing and playing--- but then gradually it all changed. The grandkids too grew up and took partners and had busy lives of their own. Our kids were going so many different ways with careers and their families and from time to time we would steal a few hours together but the frequency seemed to ebb and flow, less and less each year. Then it came time for her to leave me and life, as I knew it came crashing down.

I have tried to rejuvenate my life.  I met a very special lady and we sneak in as much happiness as old friends can and do. We enjoy a few giggles and travels together and were making a new story, however, neither one of us can or will forget our pasts.

THE CLASS OF FIFTY- NINE

             

Sometime this August, God willing, I will attend my 55^th class reunion. On that spring day in 1959, ninety-one of my classmates and myself, cut our ties to the school that had been ours for twelve long years. We set our eyes and ambitions on carving out a niche for ourselves in this land we all call home. I am sure many of us had great expectations for our lives ahead but others—for the moment at least—just wanted to survive, content to live from day to day and from foot to mouth. Some of us had already grown our wings, and others were still waiting for them to grow.

 Not many years after graduation I heard John Lennon sing, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us and the world will be as one.” What John was singing was his hope that we could find it in our hearts to live in peace in this world. I think, that if any of my dreams could have come true, that would have been the one I wanted the most.  As youngsters, we were born, and had grown up, in a world that experienced the worst war the world had ever known. The war to end all wars, it was called. Yet, I remember practicing in the fifties, ten years later, hiding under our desks in the event of a nuclear holocaust. It hasn’t gotten any better since then, what with the wars and unrest in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East. Knowing what I know now about mankind, greed and power, it never will. I hope and pray you can change that for your own sake.

As I look over the last fifty-five years of my own life, I sometimes think of Frank Sinatra’s song “My Way,” when he crooned, “Regrets, I’ve had a few but then again, too few to mention.” The way I, personally, have always felt, about regrets in my life, brings back another old saying, and that is, “Where ever you go—there you are and most likely that’s where you deserve to be.” Yes, we did control our own destiny, didn’t we? Outside of the constant world problems we seemed to have so little control over, the fickle finger of fate did reach out and touch us all, over the years, in many ways. For the most part, we lost the generation that spawned us. Spouses, classmates, and even some of our own children are gone, but yet, here we are today, still carrying on. If life has taught us anything along the way, it’s that it may be a victory of sorts to still be here, but sometimes, as a survivor, a lonely one.

So we look back at over a half a century of living, and we say, “What was it we accomplished?” I’ll try to answer my own question. The goals we had after graduation aren’t different than the goals this year’s class of graduates has. College, jobs, marriage, and families—you might say, the building blocks of our society. The thing we never realized back then was to what extent we controlled our own destiny, for in the long run, you have to take what life gives you. You either make something good of it, or let it be an anchor around your neck, dragging you down every day and every step of the way. You need to take those dreams you have had all of your life, and at least try turning them into reality, because the other side of the coin is—when you stop dreaming, my friend, you stop living. For me, at least, my part in a productive society is fading fast and we need to pass the torch. To the next generation in charge, I only hope you will look back at what went wrong and learn from our mistakes. The lessons are free, for you see; we have already paid the price.

MOM'S AND STEPMOMS

                                                             

So Mother’s day has come and gone--- at least as far as the calendar is concerned. It troubles me that so many of us have to wait for that day, to tell their mom’s how special they are to us. It troubles me that success in life, as a woman, is becoming more and more every day, contingent on what else they do in life and not the fact that first and foremost they were, or are a mother. They almost have to apologize if that’s all they want out of life. I want to reiterate here that my definition of motherhood is not just giving birth to a child but it includes the nurturing Mom’s give to their children as they progress to adulthood. I also know a lot of Mom’s have to work and I fully recognize how difficult it must be to play both roles.

When I was four my mother left my father, my brother and myself. For a couple of years an aunt raised me and my brother lived with family friends, as my dad was working for his country. My dad did remarry after the war and I had a wonderful stepmother. She saw to it I was fed and clothed and went to Sunday school. She was never cross with me or demeaning to me or compared me to my step brothers and sisters, I didn’t even find out she wasn’t my mother until much later in my young life. Yes I owe her a huge thanks but through no fault of her own, it wasn’t the same although she deserves an A-plus in heaven for the effort

It wasn’t until I married when I saw how a real mother acts. I used to see my wife rocking our children to sleep and reading them bedtime stories. Telling them how proud she was when they did well and correcting them when that was necessary. Sitting up all night with them when they were sick and taking them shopping for cool clothes for school. Always making sure they were clean and fed. It was something I hadn’t seen before in our house, when I was a kid anyway. I’m not here to chastise my stepmother. As I grew older I often thought how difficult it must have been, to raise someone else’s kids. But all the same I was never hugged or told that I was loved. No one came to my ballgames and if I was bad no one seemed to care about that either. If I missed supper, no one would make an effort to get me something to eat or even cared where I was. I was pretty much on my own. My dad worked night and day to make a living and I’m not using that as a reason to excuse him. The day I married he broke down and cried. The first time that I ever saw him cry and he told me he was sorry for the life he had given me.

Growing up I wasn’t blind to the world around me and I saw how real Mom’s treated their kids and it hurt to know that wasn’t in the cards for me. I guess today that’s why I know how important Mom’s are in our lives. When my wife died I felt so bad for my kids because they had lost a loving mother. I lost my partner too but I have managed to heal that separation and remain happy. I hope Pat is too. My kids just can’t go get another Mother. To all of the good mom’s out there, I want to salute you and tell you maybe your kids don’t appreciate all you do for them now-- but believe me there will come a day when they will. To all of the step mom’s out there today. God bless you and give you the strength to take over where the real mom’s left off. It’s got to be one of the toughest jobs in the world. Just do your best to love them and they will never forget you for that. To my stepmom-- I did love you.