Archive for March 2023
1947 Red Sox
March 30, 2023“Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.”
March 30, 2023The morning is beautiful but the night chill lingers. It is 36°. The high will only be in the low 40’s. Today is opening day for baseball. It is the 123rd opening day for the Red Sox. The projections are the Sox will have another bad season like their last place finish in 2022. I am a Red Sox fan. I would say a die-heart fan, but every Red Sox fan is understood to be a die-hard fan. I’m going to wear my Red Sox shirt and watch the game. Our mantra is if we didn’t win this game, we’ll most assuredly win the next. Hope prevails in the psych of every Red Sox fan. We are all, in my family, Red Sox fans. Even in Colorado, the babies are born with an unseen but sensed decorative B on their onesies. They’ll cheer. We’ll all cheer. Go Sox!
I don’t wonder if I have taken the right paths in my life. I feel assured that I have. Some choices didn’t have the same sway as others, but they were still the right choices. Peace Corps was and is the defining choice in my life. Everything radiates from that. I lived in Africa. I still say that astonishingly.
I worked for thirty three years in the same school. I was in charge of discipline for many of those years. My kids were remarkable. My greatest joy was watching them mature into good people. They and I didn’t always agree, but I was in charge so they went along with me, sometimes begrudgingly, even angrily, but it was short-lived. It was in the moment. I used every strategy to help my kids succeed. Sometimes I’d keep them after school outside my office and make them do their homework. I remember one parent whose son was late all the time. She wanted help. I told her to disable his car which she paid for and she did just that. He came into my office screaming at me. I calmly told him to be on time so he could earn back his car. He was always on time after that. He got back his car. I always stopped fights. When the guys, as they were mostly guy fights, saw it was me, they stopped fighting. I was never afraid to jump right into the middle of the fracas.
I see my kids all over town. They stop to say hello. I don’t always remember their names, but I do remember their faces. Most times we hug. I am ever thankful for that choice.
Photographs and Memories: Jim Croce
March 28, 2023Picture This: Blondie
March 28, 2023Kodachrome: Paul Simon
March 28, 2023Photograph: Ringo Starr
March 28, 2023A Color Picture? What Gives?
March 28, 2023
This is the picture I described in my musing. It is the second picture I ever took.
“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”
March 28, 2023The morning is damp and overcast. Last right it rained, and it will rain again today. It is in the low 40’s, but the dampness gives a chill to the air. I need a few groceries so I’ll venture out later. Bread tops the list.
When I was a kid, I thought bread only came in white. The bread was soft, and jelly used to soak through. I could take a small bit of the bread and roll it into a ball for throwing. I suppose it was Wonder Bread, the favorite back then. I liked it toasted best.
Today is a muse-less day. I seemed to be stuck. I even washed a little of the inside of the fridge this morning and threw away some expired bottles of pickles. It looked as if I was collecting gherkins.
I remember a few pictures in my geography books. One was of a man harvesting coffee beans. He could have been Juan Valdez’s grandfather. The other was of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain in Rio. I remember it was huge, and his arms were straight out. That geography book was a book of dreams and hopes.
On my first full day in Ghana, I took a picture from the second floor of the dorm where I was sleeping. The picture is of palm trees and the tops of family compounds. In the forefront of the picture is a bush with red flowers. Beside the bush is a small paved road which ended in a dirt rut. One house is under construction. I used to send my film home to be developed as there was no place in Ghana to do that. My parents got the first look at my slides. I suspect they didn’t find this slide all that interesting, but to me, it was a picture of a new world, one I hadn’t imagined, one with exotic palm trees. The houses all had tin roofs. Everywhere was green. That picture and the bus picture of us heading to the airport are favorite pictures. One was leaving for Africa; the other was arriving.
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