I remember the adults, the teachers, they were visibly upset.
We were being let out of school early for some reason.
As I exited the rear school doorway onto the pavement that surrounded the back side of Wolf Hill School, before the school fields and playground, an older boy yelled out, “the President’s been shot.” I crossed the school playground to the old railroad track that used to bring the coal into Fort Monmouth, then down the tracks to Pemberton Avenue, and the three small town blocks that took me to the path through the neighbor’s yard and into our backyard.
I was seven years old and in the second grade. I don’t remember who I walked home with, I just remember sitting in front of the small black and white TV in the living room and watching events relived and unfolding for the rest of that day.
I remember my mother was upset.
President Kennedy was dead.
Assassinated.
November 22, 1963.
It was just going to be a small wedding in a friend’s backyard, there was no need for you to come, I was told.
Well okay then, I won’t worry about it.
Besides, I am just the father, and there will be pictures, I am sure.
But I did worry about it.
So, the Friday before the wedding in the friend’s backyard, I flew into Palm Beach Airport and headed towards Fort Lauderdale in my rented Camaro. Not knowing much about this backyard wedding, I stopped at a mall in Boca Raton to buy a new hat. I picked up a new pair of jeans to wear to the wedding as well. Then I headed down to Fort Lauderdale and got a hotel room near where the cruise ships docked.
The next day I put on my new jeans and hat, got in my rented Camaro, and surprised Alexa at her wedding.
I even got to dance the father-daughter dance.
And it turns out I was right for a change; I did need to be there.
November 22, 2014.
Alexa and Namaan have been married now for ten years.
It’s been 61 years since JFK’s assassination.
I am tired because I stayed up late last night to watch the Steelers get beat by the Browns, in a snowstorm.
I am monitoring the western Pennsylvania weather and that snowstorm and stressing a little because we are considering making a pre-Thanksgiving visit with Kim’s mom.
Snow in western PA before Thanksgiving? Who would have thought?
But this morning in my History Channel email I was reminded of the events of 61 years ago; and in my Facebook memories, the events of ten years ago.
I still have those jeans, in fact, I wore them at Savannah and Leon’s wedding and Hayley and Malcolm’s as well. They needed to be there.
And like me, they are a little worn out, a little frayed and faded, yet they remain ready for the next event.
As long as it’s not another wedding.
And through all this reflection, I am being reminded of “the great significance of the passage of time.”
If you are even a casual Mets fan like me, you remember the 1980s and Mookie Wilson, and of course the 1986 Mets World Series. Mookie Wilson is said to have gotten his nickname by the way he pronounced milk as a young child. Come to think of it, I may have also had a kid who asked for “more mook please.”
Kim and I arrived at my mother’s around 7 pm last Friday evening, and my mom was all excited to watch the Dodgers in the first game of the World Series.
I thought this was odd behavior for my mother, but then, thinking maybe there was a Manhattan involved, I just rolled with it.
“My grandmother was a huge Dodger fan, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and I want to watch the game,” she explained.
Great, I thought, this was kind of a welcome diversion, a break from Fox News and the Hallmark Channel. A break from the stress of the upcoming election, with all the fascist talk, the threats to democracy, swing states, blue walls, and fake news.
Yeah, it turns out Great Grandma Flora was a big Brooklyn Dodgers fan. I had never met Flora. My mother, however, was very close to her grandmother.
And, I wasn’t too familiar with the Brooklyn Dodgers either because not too long after I was born, in 1957, both the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants decided “California’s the place you otta be,” so they loaded up and moved west to Los Angeles and San Fransisco respectively.
This left the New York Yankees as the only team in New York until 1962 when Mookie Wilson’s Mets were established as one of baseball’s first expansion teams.
Now sitting and watching the game with my mother, I was happy to find out the Dodgers had a “Mookie” too!
Mookie Betts.
We watched all the way to 10th inning when the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman made history by hitting the first game ending grand slam in World Series history.
Game One…Dodgers 6, Yankees 3.
Baseball used to be America’s sport.
As a kid I would walk down my street Willow Court in Oceanport, NJ, past the house my family called “the big house” then owned by my grandmother but also the house where Flora once lived; making my way down to Park’s Drugstore to buy the bubble gum pack with the baseball cards inside. It never occurred to me that the Roger Maris or Mickey Mantle card I had attached to my bike with a clothespin might be worth some big money someday. Nope, for me, it had much more immediate value clicking between the spokes of my rear bicycle wheel.
Saturday evening we were invited to a neighbor’s for a Halloween dinner party, so we got back to the TV and the game a little late. Kim went to bed, but my mother and I watched the second game till the end.
Game two…Dodgers 4, Yankees 2.
I never played baseball growing up, though we had Little League and Babe Ruth teams in Oceanport, I wasn’t very athletic. I played catch in the yard with my brother and friends and street baseball on summer evenings with the neighborhood kids. Since we lived on a dead end, we didn’t have to vacate the “field” too often by neighbors coming home from work.
The best baseball experience I can boast of is playing Cub Scout softball.
I wasn’t very good at softball either, but, I did manage some brief notoriety when I was playing catch on the sideline behind the bench one game with another teammate and managed to knock out another one of my Cub Scout teammates when the ball I threw didn’t quite reach the intended but instead found its way to another kids head. I remember he was talking to someone and went down, came right back up resumed the conversation, and then went down again.
Monday night, I am back home but even without my mother, feeling like I had to watch the Dodgers. The problem was the Steelers were playing on Monday night football, so up and down the stairs I went, as I tried to watch both games. After the Steelers’ 26-18 win over the New York football Giants, I watched the rest of the Dodgers game three, now playing in New York.And though I didn’t see the whole game I did see Mookie Betts hit a base hit that allowed for the third run of the third game.
Game Three…Dodgers 4, Yankees 2, again.
I remember the time I watched my friend Bob Woolley who unlike me was a very good athlete, on one of those Little League or Babe Ruth teams, throw a very exaggerated “change-up” pitch that effectively struck the batter out but also engrained in me an understanding of what a “change up” pitch was forever.
I remember the mid-sixties, and especially the 1968 World Series St. Louis Cardinals with my two favorite players of that series Lou Brock and Curt Flood stealing bases. They were fun to watch and along with pitcher Bob Gibson, they won the series.
And who could forget the ’69 Miracle Mets and the ‘73 Mets who weren’t as lucky.
Tuesday Kim and I had something scheduled, and by the time we got home and I turned the game on, it was clear the Yankees offense had awoken. They added five runs in the eighth inning to the six they had already, and as a result, I got to bed a little earlier.
Game four…Yankees 11, Dodgers only 4.
My last experience that involved a bat, ball, and glove was a short stint on the Oceanport Hook & Ladder Fireman’s softball team. I was the pitcher and after almost being taken out by a line drive, I walked off the mound and retired at the young age of 20 never to return to the diamond again.
Game five looked at first, to be a repeat of game four. Down by five runs, the Dodgers came back to tie the score in the fifth, only to be bested by one run in the sixth. With the score now 6 to 5 Yankees, the Dodgers would add two more in the eighth inning. Going into the ninth, the Dodgers couldn’t add any more runs, now with the Yankees at bat, they called in Walker Buehler in relief. Walker had started game three and would have started game seven had it gone that far, but with no more relievers left in the bullpen; he got the call.
Dodgers7, Yankees 6…the Dodgers are the World Series champs of 2024.
So that was that.
Great Grandma Flora’s team, once the Dodgers from Brooklyn, now LA, beat their once cross-town rivals, the New York Yankees.
My mom was happy, imagining her grandmother waving her flag (or pennant maybe) in celebration.
That’s awesome!
But now what do we do?
What are we going to do without a game six or seven?
We need a couple more days of Mookie, I don’t wanna go back to the election…
Ma, more mook, please.
More Mookie!
Because I, who had a better average at knocking out my teammates than I had knocking the ball out of the park, wanted just a couple more days of baseball.
Oh well, at least I had the experience of watching a couple of baseball games with my mother, creating a memory I never would have imagined happening in the first place, but also one that I may not have had the opportunity to repeat.
And besides, there are plenty of distractions I can find that will last me until Tuesday. This weekend is the Breeder’s Cup, the World Series of horse racing, at Del Mar Racecourse in San Diego. Though there have been Mookie horses in the past, like Bet on Mookie, Mr. Mookie, MVP Mookie, and Miracle Mookie; I couldn’t find any Mookies running this weekend.
And of course, I always have football that will take me through to Monday Night.
Then on Election Day, I can follow the play-by-play well into the wee hours of Wednesday morning if I decide to.
Or I can drink my Mookie and go to bed.
But before I go to bed I will pray for fairness and integrity in our election process, and, that the days that follow be calm, peaceful, and healing.
Amen?
Amen.
Postscript: The photo above is Mookie Wilson in the 1986 World Series. Mets baserunner Mookie Wilson slides into third base as Wade Boggs can only watch.
