Browsed by
Month: April 2022

The “Davids” and the “Goliaths”

The “Davids” and the “Goliaths”

Comments 6 comments

I was told a story recently.

One about a great person in the world of sports.

A tale of a player whose only concern was for his team.

A story of selflessness, and looking shame right in the eye…

All for the sake of his teammates and his coach.

 

What is it that makes one a great athlete?

What is it that makes a great leader?

Is it winning?

I do not think so.

Is it hitting that grand slam home run?

Nope.

Or throwing that Hail Mary pass to win the game with no time left on the clock?

Not on your life.

Or making The Greatest Header Goal Ever Scored in Soccer to take the lead while your parents were at the snack bar?

Well, maybe…

but back to the story:

 

It wasn’t just any game.

It wasn’t the playoffs.

It wasn’t the championship series.

It wasn’t like the World Cup.

No, it wasn’t like any game.

Because it was this game.

And to this player, this game was just as important as any game.

 

The proud parents were on the sidelines in their spot near third base cheering on their player and his team.

Their son stood at second base alertly waiting for play that might come his way at a moment’s notice.

The opposing team was one of the best.

They were like “Goliaths” in this particular league of Tee Ball.

And their team?

Well, they were like “Davids.”

The odds were against them even on a good day, but on this day three players were absent and they were playing with only eight on the field.

Every man counted.

And the second baseman knew that.

 

When the inning was over, the players began leaving the field for the dugout.  Watching her son, mom said to dad:

“I think he peed his pants.”

“No, no it’s got to be water,” said dad.

“I don’t think so, it wasn’t there before” replied mom.

 

Once the team was back in the dugout, intuitively as you would expect a mom to do, she went over to see if everything was alright with her player.

“Hey buddy, is everything okay?

“Yup,” he said, sitting on the bench as he waited his turn to bat.

“Is there anything the matter?”

“Nope,” replied her player.

“Okay,” said mom, “good job out there.”

 

Not satisfied but without wanting to call attention to her son, Mom returned to her place near third base.

 

Soon it was time for the second baseman to step into the batter’s box.

There he stood, bat in hand, and in his stance like a 3 foot 10 inch Babe Ruth.

Heck, he might as well have been pointing to the left-field fence with his bat.

Standing proudly, in front of all the spectators, the opposing team, his coach and his teammates, and his parents, he was cool and remained focused.

He got a hit.

But it was now obvious as he ran the bases, he had peed his pants.

Eventually, he scored.

 

When the inning was over the players and the second baseman returned to the field.

The third-base coach asked him “Hey buddy, did you like spill water on yourself or something?”

“No,” replied the player “I went to the bathroom.”

The coach inquired some more “what happened did you have an accident, do you want me to throw some dirt on it to kind of hide it?”

“No, I had to go and I didn’t want to leave the field so I just went,” he said calmly.

The coach turned to the young boy’s parents and said “oh my goodness I LOVE this kid!”

 

Now back in the dugout, some of the younger kids noticed it and began asking the second basement “Oh my, did you pee your pants?”

The more experienced player replied without hesitation “yeah, I had to go, but it was in the middle of the inning, and I didn’t want to let you guys down by leaving the field, so I just peed my pants.”

The coach was proud of his young player wanting to tell his other players “yeah, that’s right, the next time you have to go to the bathroom just do what that guy does!”

The story of the second baseman who peed his pants rather than leave the field and let his teammates down quickly spread through the team’s other parents.

The other dads were very impressed.

His dad was proud.

And his mom was too.

 

Professional athletes pee themselves on the field all the time.

They get paid millions of dollars to perform at a certain level and sometimes they can’t let bodily functions get in the way.

But what about when you’re not playing for millions of dollars?

What if you are not getting paid to perform at all?

What if you are just six years old?

And the most important thing to you at the moment is your team, and your younger players, those that are five maybe.

And not letting them down.

Putting the welfare of your teammates over your own personal embarrassment and potential future humiliation at school maybe or maybe the next game.

I don’t know whether that makes a great athlete.

Nor do I know whether that makes a great leader.

But it sounds to me like it might be the beginnings of the making of a good person.

And a local legend maybe.

Someone to be looked up to.

Even when you are six.

 

Postscript:

In October of 2001, Kim and I were in Virginia Beach on Columbus Day weekend.  Donny’s travel soccer team was playing in a tournament.

At one point in the game, Kim and I decided to go to the refreshment stand.

And that’s when it happened.

The Greatest Header Goal Ever Scored in Soccer.

And we missed watching Donny make it.

Because we were at the snack bar.

 

As far as the Tee Ball game, unlike the story in the Bible, the “David” team did not prevail.

The “Goliath” team won.

The score was 23 to 10 and as a result, the game was called early because of the number of runs made.  Something called The Mercy Rule.

But winning didn’t matter anyhow.

Because there are more important things than winning.

Even when you are six.

 

Because He Lives

Because He Lives

Comments 1 comment

Almost twenty years ago now, Donny’s accident occurred on Friday, July 19, 2002.  His funeral was Tuesday, July 23. Tired from grief and everything else unimaginable that week, we needed to “get out of Dodge.”   So we gathered up some kids and some close friends for support and headed out to my parent’s house on the Eastern Shore in Woolford, Maryland.

My dad was crabbing at the time so he still had his crab boat which made for the perfect diversion spending some time on the water, fishing, and crabbing.

Outside of our world, the rest of the country was watching the events unfold in Somerset County, Pennsylvania where on July 24 eighteen coal miners were trapped in the Quecreek Mine. Somerset County was where Kim’s family resided so that crisis hit close to home as well and captured our concerns too.

Woolford is a small town about halfway between Cambridge and Taylor’s Island.  There is not much to the town but a small post office attached to the Woolford Store.  The Woolford Store had everything you needed for fishing, crabbing, and back then, hunting. You could also pick up your beer and groceries or have a seat at one of the few tables in front of the deli/grill and have breakfast or lunch. Camo was common or whatever you liked to fish in and pick-up trucks lined the road out in front.

Just a little ways further up Taylor’s Island Road was a small United Methodist Church named Milton United Methodist Church.

The Milton United Methodist church in Woolford at the time was part of the four church “Church Creek Charge.” The Church Creek Charge consisted of the Whitehaven UMC in Church Creek, Milton in Woolford, Madison UMC in Madison, and the Taylor’s Island United Methodist Church on Taylor’s Island.  The Pastor at the time was Reverend Bob Kirkley.  Kirkley was a preacher’s son who himself spent many years preaching in Baltimore and in St. Mary’s county on the Western Shore. Like my dad, he was born in 1929, so he could have easily been retired.  But instead, every Sunday morning Reverend Kirkley would start his preaching at 8:45 a.m. at the Whitehaven UMC in Church Creek, and once finished he would beat feet down the road to Milton at 9:45 a.m. then Madison at 10:45 a.m. finishing up the morning at Taylor’s Island UMC.

On that particular late July, Sunday, Kim and I felt like we needed to be in church and we convinced my parents to attend with us.  We sat down in one of the pews of the small very traditional-looking aging church sanctuary.  As strangers in church that morning, once we were acknowledged my dad very uncharacteristically stood up and introduced us and explained the circumstances with Donny.

Though I don’t remember what the sermon was about that Sunday, I do remember Kim and me thinking that it was speaking directly to us on that day.

At the end of the service, everyone stood and sang “God Bless America.”

Later that morning we went over to the Volunteer Fire Department in Secretary, Maryland for buckwheat pancakes and caught some TV replays of the miners in Pennsylvania being brought to the surface one at a time in their rescue capsule.

Answered prayers for those families.

 

Once we returned to Herndon Kim emailed Reverend Kirkley and explained that my parents really needed a church family and could he visit with them and try to get them to start going to church.

He did, and it worked, and eventually, my parents became active members of the Milton United Methodist Church.

The aging church building benefited from some of my dad’s carpentry skills and in addition, he would build a new church sign out front and a special Christmas tree-shaped stand for the poinsettias at Christmas in the sanctuary.

 

As my dad’s health began to fail and walking became more difficult, they eventually had to stop attending services.

Kim and I would attend from time to time while visiting.

 

Eventually, Reverend Kirkley’s health failed too and he had to retire, and just this past February, he passed away.

And the once four charge “Church Creek Charge” over time became a three church charge with the closing of the Taylor’s Island church.

Now with a new pastor, Pastor Ben, who is actually a police officer on the western shore when he is not preaching on the weekends, the same traditions of the small-town congregation continue.

 

Yesterday Kim and I returned with my mom for Easter services at Milton.  She hadn’t been to church in a while and they were happy to see her.

Most of the faces of the small congregation were familiar.

The sign on the wall said “last week’s attendance 31.”

With Easter, however, this Sunday’s attendance swelled to 46.

The stand my dad built for the Christmas poinsettias was still present in the corner now decorated with American flags.

And since the lady who used to play the piano moved away, the hymns are sung accompanied by recorded music and vocals.  We sang “He Lives” along with Alan Jackson and “Because He Lives” with Bill Gaither.

And just like it was twenty years ago, “God Bless America” still ends every service.  No accompaniment was needed for that one.

 

After church, we visited with my dad and tried to remember Easters of the past when the big deal was packing the family in the Corvair and driving all the way to Middletown to have dinner at McDonald’s.

Now with our visit over, Kim and I got back in the truck to head home.

But not before a quick stop at the McDonald’s in Cambridge to keep the tradition going.

 

It was a nice Easter.

“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth a living just because He lives”

(From “Because He Lives” by Bill Gaither)

 

Postscript

The photo above was taken at the time the new sign that my dad built was installed at the church.

 

Pastor Ben leading the service
The poinsettia tree, now adorned with American flags
The sign my dad built, as it looked on Easter 2022
The Strongest Kid in Oceanport

The Strongest Kid in Oceanport

Comments 2 comments

“When are we going to go upstairs and eat?”

“Carl, we don’t go upstairs to eat, we eat here.”

“We always go upstairs and eat.”

“No, we don’t Carl, we don’t have an upstairs, we always eat here on the porch.”

“Yes, we do!  We eat upstairs!”

“Alright, alright.”

 

 

This past January I was going through a cabinet in my home “office” that was full of my old notebooks and journals, and I began to leaf through them.  I am not particularly organized so it’s not always clear if the entries are chronological or not, but in one notebook that contained most of my 2016 first-year Musings notes, I found a page dated April 29.  I am going to assume, therefore, that this was April 29, 2016. Here is a somewhat edited version of that day’s notes:

Yesterday my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. His primary care had suspected he might have the disease and he sent him to a specialist in Salisbury who confirmed the diagnosis.  He was ordered to be put on medication to start treatment.

Since I have had a couple of weeks to process the possibility of this diagnosis, to some degree I am glad that it has been confirmed and possibly the medication will help him.  He has endured changes that have noticeably impacted his activities of daily living and maybe some of those changes can be relieved.

Last week he had my mother ask me over the phone if I wanted his bicycle.  He was told by the doctor he could no longer ride his bicycle. 

I thought that was sad and told him to keep it out there for me to ride when I visited. 

It must be really hard.

I don’t know much about Parkinson’s Disease at this point, but I suppose I will begin to learn. 

I guess only time will tell.

In the meantime, I will learn as my dad goes through this, at least as much as I can.

 

And so began the learning experience.  The journey of watching the life of a once-proud, confident, independent, talented, competent, most of the time charming, and all the time stubborn individual, whose life had impacted so many, begin to implode.

A guy who was known for his physical abilities, his sense of balance, his strength, and his accuracy.  He could cross a log over a stream with ease, he could lean comfortably over the edge of the roof of a building while pulling a roll of tar paper up on the end of a rope; he could climb a rope using only his arm strength, he could drive a 10-penny nail with one swoop of a hammer and cut through a branch with one chop.

“One Chop Mo” they called him in Boy Scouts.

He could ski, ice skate, windsurf, climb a ladder, carry a backpack over miles of the Appalachian Trail, drive a firetruck, fight a fire, and even deliver a baby.

He could build a house, build a fine piece of furniture, build a First Aid building, and build a community-free library.

And he could ride his bicycle.

But not anymore.

 

 

The conversation illustrated above became more common as his disease progressed. But it wasn’t always like that and before reaching the point of incoherent sentences or confusion, as much as I could, I asked questions and wrote things down.

Though some of those conversations reached long into the night and were sometimes blurred and marred by Manhattans and red wine, not to mention the progression of his Parkinson’s, I tried to do the best I could to document his comments.  The Manhattan’s were always good grease for the wheel on his end, but on my end red wine didn’t always allow me to capture those memories as well as I would have liked.

But we had fun.

 

My dad talked a lot about “going home” as his mind began to change.

He always wanted to “go home.”

“Home” to him, in his later Parkinson’s years, was in Oceanport, N.J.

Though he lived in Woolford, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and hadn’t lived in Oceanport in thirty years, in his memory, he lived back in the town he was raised in and where he raised his family.

His life was going full circle.

And in his defense, in the house that he built in Oceanport; he did go upstairs to eat.  The kitchen was on the middle floor, or more exactly the third level of the four-level split he built.  If he was in the basement where his workshop lived, or in the “rec” room where his bar was located, he went up the stairs to reach the kitchen and eat.

So in his previous house, the “home” he remembered best as being his home, he went upstairs to eat.

Except for the few years as a child when he lived in the Scandinavian neighborhood of Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge section, my father was born and raised in Oceanport.

My grandfather moved the family to Brooklyn in the 1930s to find work and for three years, my dad lived and attended New York’s public school system in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades.

It’s been a while since we have had the ability to have those conversations when I could learn more about his life.  But interestingly, this past Monday, on his birthday, out of the blue, he shared another story I had not heard before.  You have to understand this was a big deal because most of his speech now is unintelligible.  On Monday, while we celebrated his birthday in the facility where he now lives, he shared the story of another birthday party he had in Brooklyn in 1939 when he turned ten years old.  He said he had just started to play guitar and they played “kissing games.”  He also mentioned that baseball was big back then.

I don’t know where all this came from but I got pretty excited and of course, took notes on my phone.

I have never heard him say anything about playing the guitar, but I definitely believe he played “kissing games.”  I did try to push him a little with some follow-up questions about the Brooklyn Dodgers but at that point, it was over.  The clarity had ceased.

I think he had a great birthday and for me it was awesome.

 

On April 29th in 2016 I wrote:

“I don’t know much about Parkinson’s Disease at this point, but I suppose I will begin to learn. 

I guess only time will tell.

In the meantime, I will learn as my dad goes through this, at least as much as I can.”

 

It’s now April of 2022.

I am still learning.

Though I probably still don’t know as much about Parkinson’s in the clinical sense as I should,  I do know how it has affected my dad and impacted my mother.

 

My dad once told me “At one time I was the strongest kid in Oceanport.”

I believe he probably was.

That strength is gone now.

And the sense of balance he was once so proud of, gone too.

It’s hard to believe it has only been six years that we have been on this journey.

Yet he still has those days when he amazes me.

So I guess I will keep on learning.

As long as he keeps sharing.

 

Postscript:

I shared his birthday photo on social media and he got many responses and comments.  I read as many of those comments as I could to him while I was with him on Monday and will follow up with the rest the next time I see him.  Thanks to all for helping to make his birthday special.

My dad enjoying his birthday ice cream cone. He hadn’t had an ice cream cone in about 10 months.
Society’s Child 2022

Society’s Child 2022

Comments 6 comments

Since last Friday was April 1st, it was time to switch the Guitar calendar on my office wall to May.  We always keep the Guitar calendar a month ahead and refer to a more traditional calendar hanging next to the Guitar calendar for those dates in the current month.

I took one more look at the April birthday list before inserting the pushpin into the corkboard and officially switching it over to May.

April 7th, I noted, Janice Ian’s birthday.

That brought to mind the only Janice Ian song I could think of Society’s Child.

Unless you are my age or older you may not be familiar with Janice Ian.

A Jersey girl though not typically associated with the music we now identify as the Jersey sounds made famous by Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven, she was born in Farmingdale, not far from where I grew up, and went to high school in East Orange.

Janice Ian wrote the song Society’s Child (Baby I’ve been Thinking) when she was thirteen.  The song was about an interracial relationship between a young white girl and a young black boy, and the negative treatment she received from her mom, other students, and teachers.

Her “Society.”

By the end of the song, she says, “I don’t want to see you anymore” and gives in to the pressure.

But not before saying the line “When we’re older, things may change. But for now, this is the way they must remain.”

 

 

I heard a great sermon last Sunday.

One I needed to hear I think in my continued funk.

One that helped to put some of my concerns in perspective.

It was in fact, about perspective.

 

“How critically important it is for me to have to stop in these times when you seem to be being bowled over by shock, anxiety, trauma, and the need to find just a moment to breathe in, take a breath of the Grace of God; to just find some sustenance.  And it may not change what’s going on but it will give you strength.  And God intends us to know something of that peace in the midst of chaos…

The kind of peace that comes to us in the midst of crisis, tumult, and pain…it is strength to know the presence of God, and it’s wisdom,” said the preacher.

 

Unless you live under a rock, you know we have all these things in our world, and some folks may even be experiencing crisis and pain in their personal lives.

 

But what about in those quieter times?

Those times when we may not be experiencing crisis (but everything is a crisis right?), just the normal stresses of work, family, finances, and life in general.

 

A couple of thousand years ago near or maybe even on this day, Jesus stopped on his way to Jerusalem to hang out with some friends and enjoy some quiet time before what he knew was the inevitable.

You may be familiar with the story of Martha and Mary.

Martha runs around stressed and anxious as she prepares the meal in the kitchen while her sister Mary just chills at the feet of Jesus.

She even asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her.

But Jesus tells her “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed…Mary has chosen what is better…

Mary understands the peace of God while Martha creates a crisis.

I am too often guilty of having the Martha thing going on I am afraid, and might be better served to take a seat.

 

According to what I have read, Atlantic Records recorded Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking) but then refused to release it and when it finally was released on a different label many radio stations wouldn’t play it.

This was 1966 and 1967.

The world was different then.

Right?

And “When we’re older, things may change.”

Right?

I think so.

In 1966 and 1967 I was ten and eleven years old.

And through my eyes much has changed in the last fifty-five years.

I have changed.

People I know and love have changed

Our country has changed.

 

But nevertheless, if you look and live like me, and believe what I believe, society would have me labeled as a racist, a capitalist, a homophobe, and whatever else.

Yup, that’s me, Society’s Child of the 2020’s I guess.

And I will admit, I take some offense to that.

 

I watched video of former President Obama’s return to the White House this week.  It reminded me that it really wasn’t that long ago that we weren’t so racist in this country and that we had come a long way since 1966.

But now that has all changed again.

 

It is sad that we can’t put our world in a more realistic perspective, can’t recognize the change that has occurred in humanity, and in the hearts of individuals.  It just may help progress to continue.

I am older now, and I have seen that things do change, things have not remained that way in all circumstances. And I also recognize more change is necessary.

Yet, some want to create a crisis.

And some understand the peace of God.

Choosing what is better.

Sitting at the feet of Jesus.

But that is just my perspective.

 

Postscript:

The photo above was taken last week on my most recent visit to see my Pops.  Janice Ian isn’t the only famous person to have a birthday in April because Monday April 11 is my dad’s birthday.  He will be 93 years old.  So just in case I don’t get around to paying him some attention in words I will acknowledge him here.