Ford Street

Shea Goodbye

Yesterday I went to Shea Stadium for the last time. 

It was a horrible, horrible day all the way around.  I was certain that it wouldn’t actually be the last game; the stars would align, Milwaukee would lose, and the Mets would win, and we’d be playing ball in October. 

None of that happened. 

The weather was lousy; wet and humid.  On the upside, we had terrific seats, and the energy for most of the game was, well, amazin’.  When the scoreboard updated the Milwaukee-Chicago game, though, that “3-1” just shut up everyone in the house, and it got very quiet. 

The ceremony was held after the game – a spectacular lack of judgment on the part of Mets management – and that brightened everyone’s spirits just a little.  Lots of players who made names for themselves as Mets, including many who contributed personally to my enjoyment of baseball in my formative years, and of course, the ’86 team.  The whole thing was tinged with sadness, though, and I can’t help feeling that it would have been more of a celebration if it had been held before the game. 

I will always have a special place in my heart for Shea Stadium.  Just driving past it cheered me up.  I loved going to Mets games through the years, with Mike, with Dan, with Vicki, and now with Rebecca.  I went to some concerts there as well, including the Billy Joel concert this summer.  Lots of people thought it was a dump, and maybe it was a dump, but it was home.  It felt good to be there.  It felt holy to me, at times.  Magic things happened there (yes, I think magic things  happened there, even though I am a Mets fan.)  Funnily enough, I took my sister Vicki to her first-ever game at Shea, and when I got to the stadium yesterday, I wondered aloud to Rebecca where she was sitting…and she was three rows in back of me.

Another reason it was holy to me: though I never got to go to a Mets game with my father, Mike did.  We had tickets one night, many many years ago, and I didn't or couldn't go for some reason.  So Mike took my Dad.  The image of the two of them at that ball game comforts me in ways I can't explain.  It makes me tear up, even though my father died 22 years ago.  (The same year they won the World Series...coincidence?  I DON'T THINK SO.  It was my Dad that kicked the ball through Buckner's legs, and that's a fact.)   

It’s tough to have a part of your life disappear; it reinforces the passing of time and the speedy advance of age.  I will miss the bright blue stadium.  I am, of course, eager to see what the springtime and Citi Field will bring; a shiny new stadium will make me temporarily forget how much I miss Shea.  I hope they mark the parking lot somehow, as in “this is where home plate was” or “this marks the location of the crappy Carvel stand” or some such.  I hope they take the Apple with them, and the NYC skyline, complete with World Trade Center and ribbon, to Citi Field.  I’m taking all of those things with me, in my heart. 

Oh and one last thing.  I’m not calling it Citi Field.  Shea, it stays.

Photos courtesy of the New York Daily News.

Blue Skies, Mr. Newman

I'm Sticking to My Guns on This

Well, I'm going to quote someone else again today. I'm sorry, I can't help myself. The following is from Maureen Dowd in today's New York Times; it's part of a (fictional) conversation between Sen. Barack Obama and… wait for it… Jed Bartlet! Clearly Ms. Dowd reads my blog, and knows where to find a President that gives one goose bumps…and clearly, I'd follow Aaron Sorkin to the ends of the Earth…

"Call them liars, because that's what they are. Sarah Palin didn't say "thanks but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said "Thanks." You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I'd ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you're at it, I want the word "patriot" back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn't know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can't do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn't their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they've earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It's not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It's not bad enough she's forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It's not enough that a woman shouldn't have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist's baby too? I don't know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she's got the qualifications of one. And you're worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!"

Wherefore Walla Wallas?

My friend Dan wants to go and live with the Walla Walla tribe.

I should point out that this is a fictitious tribe, contrived out of thin air on Montague Street Saturday night. The Walla Wallas were used as an example of another way of life. They spend considerably less time working and considerably more time with their friends and their families. Of course, there are other trade-offs. The Walla Wallas don't have televisions, or Tivos, or computers or, you know, Mallomars. But they are a content people, because they get to spend more time with people they love. Whereas, the group on Montague Street on Saturday night doesn't spend nearly enough time together.

Life goes along, as it does, and we all do the best we can to meet the demands of work, and relationships, and laundry, and friends. Sometimes friends get shoved aside, only because work is work, right, and relationships are relationships, right, and you gotta do the laundry. So you see your friends when you can, and it's never as much as you want. And then there's the problem of friends that live far away. If you can't see someone who lives nearby as often as you'd like, how do you make sure that you keep up with people who live 3,000 miles away?

I have often spoken of "the commune" to my friends – it's a joke now, after all these years. My commune, if you will, is simply a neighborhood where all of the people near to my heart live. Somehow there is this plot of land, and we all build our homes on it, and live together and take care of each other and work for each other, as well as the common good. (I guess my commune involves somehow winning the lottery.) As I get older, the idea of the commune becomes more cherished to me, because my friends become more cherished. I originally conceived of the commune as a place for me, and all of my single friends, to live when we got older. Proximity would enable us to take care of each other. Now I have Rebecca, of course, so now the commune is not just for singles any more. I want all of my good friends there, and I want my family there too. What a gift, to be able to be surrounded by the people you love all of the time.

Which brings me back to the Walla Wallas. The group on Montague Street kind of goofed on Dan a good bit when he waxed philosophically about the Walla Wallas, mostly because we think that Dan's head would explode without his computer. The truth is, though, it wouldn't happen. Dan is a softie at heart and wants to see his wife, and soon, his baby, more often than he does. He wants to see his friends more often. We all do. Maybe it's an offshoot of living in such a hectic city. It's a blessing to live/work in New York but it's also a curse. It makes me sad to look out of my apartment window at all of the other apartment windows, and the people inside of them. Are they looking out, toward me, dreaming of keeping friends and loved ones safe and nearby?

Are we all dreaming of the Walla Wallas?

Seven Years On

So scared

   

There’s been so much I’ve wanted to say about the Republican ticket. 

SO much. 

But I’ll let Patti Davis, in the current issue of Newsweek, say it instead.  For now. 

(Written as a letter to Hillary Clinton)

“Many of us are frightened about the future of this country. You once said, with tears in your eyes, that running for president was very personal to you -- that where America goes from here was deeply personal. It's personal to us also. Please help us communicate that putting a woman on a presidential ticket is only a good thing if it's the right woman.  Certainly, those of us who watched the Republican convention saw a woman who knows how to throw zingers. But few of us, if any, were encouraged by that.  America is in trouble. We need hope, we need solutions, we need dignified, compassionate leadership. If we want zingers we'll turn on Comedy Central.”