A Father's Day Remembrance.

My father grew up in a row house in West Philadelphia. The neighborhood was poor and “ethnic,” full of immigrant families where English was not spoken. My father’s parents came from the old country—from Russia or Poland, depending on whose raping and pillaging army was ascendant, and they knew little of the language. They conversed in Russian or Polish or Yiddish, or even some German they learned along the way. My father called grapefruits “oranges” his whole life. Something in some Chomskied corner of his brain prohibited him from seeing the two fruits as distinct.

Despite this my father seems to have read more than anyone I have ever known. I say seems because he knew a million facts, he knew history like a PhD., but I never actually saw him read a book. He just somehow absorbed information from the ether.

My brother and I shared a bedroom in our little-tilted house in Yonkers. Though I was the younger brother, I had the top bunk. Even as a little kid, I couldn’t sit upright because our ceilings weren’t but six and a half feet high.

When my father was around, which wasn’t all that often, he would come into our bedroom to read us a book before we went to sleep. He wasn’t one to read us kid’s books. He didn’t value them and didn’t find them interesting. Even when I was, say three and my brother was five, he would be reading us Plutarch’s “Lives,” Malory’s “Le Morte d'Arthur,” “Gilgamesh” or maybe something more contemporary, “Washington Square” by Henry James or “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Hemingway. There was no Dr. Seuss for us.

One night, my father came into our bedroom holding a greasy brown paper bag and two copies of Richard Lattimore’s just published translation of Homer’s “Iliad.” From the bag he pulled out two sheathed daggers of the cheap sort that in those days you could buy at a museum gift shop of the corner candy store. The daggers were about ten-inches long from stem to stern, with the hasp and the sheath bedecked with ersatz plastic gems. He handed my brother a dagger and a copy of Lattimore. And then he did the same with me.

“Philip of Macedon slept with a copy of Homer and a dagger under his pillow against assassins,” my father said. “His son, Alexander the Great, did the same. And a few centuries later, Mithradates emulated the Macedonians by sleeping with the Iliad and a dagger under his pillow.”

My father continued as if in a trance. “Philip, Alexander, Mithradates. Three of the greatest, most enlightened leaders the world has ever known. Conquerors of Attika, Xerexs, Cyrus and Darius. Conquerors of the riches of the East. Lovers of democracy, liberators of the enslaved.

“I ask you to consider that these men slept with a dagger under their pillows and a copy of the Iliad.”

With that, my father left our room.

Everything would have been ok if things ended right there but, of course, they didn’t, they never do. In school, we were given one of those banal assignments where we had to describe what our dog was like, or our house or our bedroom. I chose to describe my bedroom, which in the scheme of things probably wasn’t the wisest choice because I revealed to my teacher, who revealed to the principal, who revealed to the Yonkers School District that I slept with a dagger under my pillow.

I suppose this all caused quite a stink. But of course, they totally neglected to say Homer was under there too.

This Band of Brothers. And Sisters.

I’ll be the first to admit, there is very little I detest more than working late.

The fact of the matter is, most often I’m the first one in the office in the morning and I do my best work while the frost is still on the pumpkin.

But now I am working with some of the best people I have ever worked with. On a major brand. With major challenges.

It’s demanding.

Tough.

Even enervating.

Annoying.

Frustrating.

That is the nature of work, maybe even the nature of relationships. And life itself.

You are, if you’re lucky, faced with things that challenge you. That scare you. That make you question yourself and your ability.

But time and again, working with really good people, with fortitude, you come through.

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 

Shall be my brother;"

Peace out, brothers and sisters.

A Tempus Fugit Ghost Story. (A re-post.)

"When the Tempus Fugit opened up," the bartender said to me by way of introduction, "When the Tempus Fugit opened up, all the buildings around us that are health clubs and gourmet shops and doggy day-care and nail salons, were small industry."

He wiped the teak in front of me and pulled me a Pike's Ale (the ALE that won for YALE!) He hustled around from the back of the bar and brought Whiskey, my 21-month-old Golden Retriever a small wooden bowl of cold water.

"One of the businesses was owned by a German man, Berkholdt, I think it was. He was a flour merchant. Though it might of been Berkholdtz."

"I suppose it doesn't make a difference. They're both long gone."

He ignored my characteristic gloominess and plowed ahead with his tale.

"Mrs. Berkholdt--that's the name I'm landing on--was a big woman, and there was nothing she liked to do more than dance. Not the Charleston or the dances the flappers were doing. But formal waltz-like dancing, like she had grown up doing before she emigrated from Germany."

"This was a German neighborhood back then," I added.

"Berkholdt was quite prosperous and when the couple went to a ball, the Mrs. would gird herself with all kinds of jewelry. They were proud of their wealth--their accomplishment, and they liked showing it off.

"This particular dance happened in the summer, they might have been celebrating July 4th. In any event, it was hot as the gates of Hell in the dance hall. These were days long before air-conditioning."

I had finished Pike's number one and the bartender silently pulled me number two. He filled a small bowl with salted Spanish peanuts and pushed them in my direction. I pushed them, politely, away. As always, I am watching my weight. The last thing I need is salted nuts.

"Mr. and Mrs. B were having quite a time cutting the rug, as they say. But it was hot, and all of a sudden, Mrs. Berkholdt swoons and collapses to the floor."

"She was a big woman, I assume."

"They all were at that time. She had the arms of a butcher and the shoulders of a milkmaid. She was large, heavily dressed and dancing like St. Vitus.

"They tried to resuscitate her. An ambulance showed up, a local doctor. But she was gone."

"Dead," I said sagaciously.

He took my empty glass and dipped it into sudsy water and then into clean water. He polished it dry then filled it again.

"Berkholdt wanted her buried right away and he wanted her buried just as she died. In her dancing gown and in her jewelry. A day or two later, they were all ready to lay her to rest in the family vault in Woodlawn, in the Bronx. But just as they were about to commence with the burial, the heavens opened up."

"It poured," I added.

"It was positively diluvian. They laid her on a slab out of the rain and decided to try again the next day. Everyone left except for the undertaker. He saw her jewels and he wanted them.

"He took off her broach, removed her watch, her earrings. And wrestled a large gold ring from her finger. It was hard to get off. She had been running to fat, might have been swollen, or it could have been rigor-mortis. In any event, he ripped the skin of her finger as he was removing the ring."

I sipped at Pike's number three. "Go on," I said.

He said nothing for a good minute, instead he wiped the well-polished surface of the bar top with a damp white terry.

"Taking off the ring woke her up. She sat bolt upright and screamed. Of course the undertaker did too. And he ran away as fast as he could."

"Jesus."

"Jesus is right," he agreed. "Mrs. Berkholdt, I don't know how she did it--she made it out of the cemetery, out of the Bronx and right to our door. Right to the door of the Tempus Fugit. Where she collapsed again. And this time she really was dead."

"That's quite a story for a Sunday night," I said. And I shoved two twenties his way.

"Cover charge," I said, "for entertainment."

"On me," he said and he pushed the bills back.

Whiskey and I walked, gingerly, home.

White noise. Black dog.

The loudest thing this morning in the office is the assertive whoosh of the white-noise machines implanted in the ceilings. 

There are a few other people here, writers, drinking their coffee, doing their work, or just, in generally, getting ready for whatever it is they have to do.

I've been staring at this space for a good 30 minutes now. My Puerto Rican coffee is one-inch from the bottom, but still, I've found nothing to write.

Maybe we need to take a break from this--there's a lot going on at work. Or maybe the spectre of a Trump Presidency has been feeling too afraid and too angry. Not to mention the fact that a man questioned twice by the FBI can buy a rifle--with no waiting period--that can fire 700 bullets in a minute.

The AR-15 is the consumer version of the military's lethal M-16. But no one knows that. No one reports on that. And after a mass-shooting, gun sales soar. Somehow more than half of our Congress believes that the right to a rifle that can shoot 700 bullets a minute with virtually no recoil is god-given and inalienable.

No wonder I'm stymied.

Frankly, the world is too much with me. 

I wish the white noise were louder; I wish it were everywhere and could block everything out.

Can you turn it up please? 

Can you make it all go away?

Nah.

No one's listening.

Melancholia.

This is one of those mornings when nothing is coming to me. 

Where I stare at the blankness and it remains blank.

Ah, I could write about my recent sojourn to Saltillo, Mexico.

Or today's splendid weather.

Or bending an elbow in the Tempus Fugit.

I could. But I can't.

Nothing is coming.

It happens some times. 

It just ain't there.

Maybe it's pressure-induced melancholia. Maybe it was a weekend visit I had from an old ghost, my sister, who died nine years ago in a horrible motorcycle crash on Mother's Day.

Nancy visits now and again, particularly on quiet mornings when I am alone with my wife and my dog. She shows up--her awkward self and holds my hand and pets Whiskey.

All right, that's enough for me.

Wallowing is unbecoming.

Besides, I have work to do.

A bad afternoon in Saltillo.

I’ll be completely honest with you. I know it was just an exhibition game between guys ranging in age from 50-85, but I stunk.

They had put me in at third, the position I last played regularly in the early 70s, and I stunk. With my right arm dead from a slight but painful tear of my rotator cuff, I couldn’t make the throw from third to first with any velocity whatsoever.

The Delfines got their first two guys on. Our pitcher, a 66-year-old who played for eight seasons nearly a decade before I arrived in the league was shaped like a beer-keg and threw just about as well.

Their first guy hit a nothing blooper behind our first-baseman. A decent first-sacker could have had it in his hip-pocket, but we were a geriatric squad and the ball fell in. Their next batter hit a light grounder, another sure out in a regular game. It scurried between first and second and it squibbed through for a hit. They had men on first and second with none out.

Out of force of habit, I took two steps in at third, a pretense at being able to initiate a double-play. as luck would have it, their third batter grounded one hard back my way. I fielded it back-handed going to my right and rather than going across the diamond to get the sure out at first, I pivoted and threw the ball to our short-stop, who was covering second.

Unfortunately, though I tried to put some mustard on the ball, I had failed to bring my arm down and snap off the throw. So instead of making a decent peg, I tossed the sphere into shallow centerfield, six or nine or 12 feet over our short stop’s head. I had let two runs in on a throwing error, their third batter taking third on my miscue.

It went on like that for six more runs. When we finally got to the plate for our ups, we were down 8-0, and anyone of the assembled thousands who were still watching were likely laughing at our futility.

Our first batter hit a hard opposite field fly that landed in the expanse of the large right-field of Estadio Francesco I. Madura, and huffing and puffing, he found himself standing up on third with none down. Our next bat brought him in with a geriatric squeeze play that had the nine or 17 people still watching the game convulsed with laughter.

By the time I stepped up to the plate, I was batting sixth, we were down 8-2 with one man on and only one down. I swung hard at the first pitch—I saw it big as a grapefruit, but I was unable to coordinate all the parts of me that used to work together so seamlessly. As I turned my shoulders and hips to get some power into what passed for my swing, I lost my footing and my balance and went ass-over-teakettle and fell in the batter’s box.

Luckily everyone must have chosen the exact moment of my pratfall to be out grabbing una Modelo o una Coca-Cola and no one threw anything in my direction or called out anything particularly cruel.

I looked over at Karmen and Teresa who were sitting together behind the Seraperos’ dugout and they each gave me a little wave and a smile. That was enough for me to regain my composure and once again take my ups. The second pitch also came in fat as a politician, but I had no kind of swing. I got under it and popped it up weakly to their back-stop.

Though we had played just one inning, it had taken a good hour and the umpiring crew, proving that the quality of mercy is not strained, called it a game, a loss for the Seraperos veteranos.

I had in just one inning made a crucial error, fallen down at the plate and popped out to their catcher. But the game was over now, and, like most games, it mattered not a whit. I trotted to the locker-room, taking extra-care not to fall again and showered and changed into some decent clothing.

It could have been a horrible afternoon. But fortunately, I watched the real game with Teresa and Karmen.

And as they do, they made everything all right again.

The warm-up.

Slowly, the stadium started filling in around me. Some of the regulars on the 2016 edition of the Seraperos would trot onto the field in little clumps of two or three or four.

They'd go for light runs, like I was doing, from foul pole to foul pole on the dusty, not-yet-watered-down outfield warning track. Or they’d play a rapid, Spanish game of pepper, which is faster and more aggressive than the style we played up north. Fielding sharply hit ground balls more in the manner of dodging the thrust of a rapier than handling a bounding ball. Or they’d arrange themselves in far-apart triangles and play long, looping games of catch, slowly, slowly, slowly loosening their strong sinewy wings for the day ahead.

After a while, the grounds crew brought out a small podium on the green grass half-way between the pitcher’s rubber and home plate. It was from there the VIPs would conduct their ceremonies and their tributes to ballplayers past, most-especially, Hector Quesadilla, who had managed the club for 34 years and led the Seraperos to their first League championship, winning it all twenty years earlier in 1996.

Issy Buentello showed up as did Guilliermo Sisto. I played catch—gingerly, with Issy, protecting my torn right rotator, but still trying to loosen my wing enough so I could make, with some snap, the long throw from third to first. Sisto stood by me—85 years old—and mostly kibitzed, though occasionally he’d cut in front of me like an NFL cornerback and intercept a lazy toss from Buentello.

I saw Teresa in a Seraperos-green matching outfit on the field with some officials from the club and I jogged over and kissed her good-morning. It was now 90 minutes before the game and the stands, on a perfect Mexican summer’s day, were beginning to fill with eager fans. The officials from the club went over with Teresa the choreography of the morning; she was to present the ‘Hector Quesadilla’ cup to one of the current Seraperos who, in 2015, had led the Mexican League in doubles, triples and stolen bases.

In the stands, behind the Seraperos dugout, I saw, in a white dress, like the first time I saw her, the serene beauty of Karmen. I thought back to 1975 when I saw her and I wished, more than usual, that I was 17 again.

The flags were flying. Electronic music was playing, too loud if you ask me, on a hundred speakers and the Delfines de Cuidad del  Carmen were hustling us Seraperos off the field so they could warm up and take batting practice.

There’s nothing like the frenzy and activity and nerves and laughter and hope of the hour before a game is to begin. I suppose it’s like working Mission Control for a space launch. It’s excitement, and fear, hope, and, even, dread.

I hustled back to the locker room with Issy and Sisto trailing behind, to change into my Seraperos uniform. We laughed and jogged and jogged and laughed.

The game was about to begin.

Just a game.

And a meaningless one at that.

But that’s ok.

It was the only game we had.

Before the game.

I woke up early, before either Karmen or even Teresa, a notoriously early-riser, were up. I made a large pot of very strong coffee and ate a big bowl of corn flakes, virtually the same breakfast I gobbled 41 years ago when I roomed with Hector and Teresa and, of course, Karmen.

The ballpark--Estadio Francesco I. Madura--was just a mile and a half from Teresa's house. I threw on my old, green Seraperos windbreaker, grabbed my duffle bag and walked to the old stadium. There would likely be no one else there for hours. But that was ok by me. I was always a 'get to the park early' type. That's carried over to today where I still, usually, get to work before anyone else. It's just how I do things, how I get ready for the day ahead.

The door to the clubhouse was guarded by an old dark man who of course had no idea who I was. He wasn't used to seeing old gringos at his beaten door. But the club had put me and the other Veteranos on a list and he waved me in.

Alone in the dank and dripping locker-room, a room little changed since last year's game, even little changed from the summer of 1975 when I played for the Seraperos, I changed into my warm-up gear and went out onto the field, just to get a sense of where, once again, I was.

There is a beauty to an empty ballpark, because even in the still of a pre-seven a.m. morning, it is never really empty. I could hear the chirp of the million birds that swarm around the place, picking and pecking at the empty stands, collecting peanut shells and pretzel bits for their homes and bellies. There is the mechanical click-splash of automatic sprinklers as they keep the green grass green despite the heat of the Mexican-summer-sun. There is the ca-chunk of down seats being pushed up by the battery of sweepers hoping against hope to clean the place before the next game begins. I took it all in, as I had done so many times before, and I liked it.

The ceremonies of the day were four hours away, the game itself maybe five hours off. It would be another hour or two before my team-mates arrived. An hour or two before things started happening. But that was ok.

It's always good to be where you belong.

Good morning, Sunshine.

One of the things that strikes me, strikes me especially on days like today, when the air is warm, the sky is clear and even over the roar of the hundreds of construction cranes that dot Manhattan and the thousands of jack-hammers that tear it apart, you can hear the sparrows chirping, one of the things that strikes me is how much humanity we lose keeping our focus on the two-inches of touch-sensitive glass that seems ever-present before our eyes.

Thoreau, of course, wrote, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

I wonder if we, in fact, are living lives of quiet digitation and go to the grave looking for the next song on Pandora.

The four women I shared a cab with barely looked up from their devices--on this, one of the most beautiful days of the year. They were in their cellular cocoons, texting friends, reading trends. There wasn't a hello among the bunch, or even a sideways look out the window to skipping school kids, burly construction workers and already-harried business men.

I jumped out early, at 77th and Central Park West, over two-miles from my office, and walked a meandering path to work. Down Columbus, over to Amsterdam, and then over to West End, which turns into 11th at 57th Street.

Probably no one anymore knows that 11th Avenue long ago was called 'Death Alley.' That now-buried train-tracks running beneath the road used to be at grade, roaring at high-speed up and down the avenue along with cars, trucks and thousands of longshoreman working the nearby piers. 

That's all gone now. Probably for good.

What's not good is that we seem no longer present in our world. We are lost in our screens. Deafened by the beeps and buzzes and chimes that pin-prick us constantly. Mired in endless powerpoints that are like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Ah. I'll stop now.

And maybe go listen to some faraway sparrows.

Karman Rodriguez Barranca Costales.

Karmen and I sat once again in Teresa’s living room, a safe distance apart, she on the sofa that ran along the wall with the large windows facing the street, me on a brown upholstered arm chair cater-corner to the larger piece of furniture.

I noticed very faintly the hairline scar that started from below her right eye and circled around her cheek and almost down to her mouth. It was a scar she had gotten when she was a kid, when a bunch of kids were playing ‘ball’ with an old tin can and one flew up and cut her face. I liked the scar, I always did, it matched in its own way one I had behind my right eye—it looks like crow’s feet, exaggerated crow’s feet, another remnant of a dangerous childhood.

We sat and waited for the other to speak first. It had been almost 40 years.

She began: “The dinner was no good? You are home early.”

“You know me and crowds. No different from when I was 17.”

“And I was just 16.”

“Now you are Karman Rodriguez Barranca Costales.”

She told me of her short marriage to German Barranca, a second-baseman who had four cups of coffee in the big leagues. She managed, while they were married to get her high-school equivalency diploma, then enroll in junior college, then the University of Cincinnati, then University of Cincinnati Law School.

Now, 41 years after she was a ticket-taker at Francesco I. Madura stadium in Saltillo, Mexico, she was a financial planner in Solano Beach, California, just outside of San Diego, with something like two dozen ball-players and former ball-players making up the bulk of her practice.

“You have done well, Karmen. I knew you would.”

“You, too. Though you are not the English professor you had hoped to be.”

“No, a different path presented itself. I had no money for graduate school and I followed it. I guess it’s ok. Some days I like what I do.”

“That is better than average and you can still read Chaucer and Cervantes. There is no law against that.”

It was now almost three in the morning, and though we were not talked out, we knew it was time for bed. She headed off to the small room we had shared during the summer of 1975. I removed the cushions from the living room sofa and folded out my bed and made it with the sheets Teresa had left for me.

I kissed her and kissed her again and thought about her as I knew her. She held my hand and kissed me again.

“Good night, Jorge Navidad.”

“Good night, Karman Rodriguez Barranca Costales.”

It was better this way.

I had a game in less than 12 hours.