It's a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame, Photo 4

Last Friday was a monumental day in the history of Major League Baseball. The Chicago Cubs had their 100th home opener at Wrigley Field. That means that for 100 years, there has been a major league baseball team at Wrigley and, I might add, at this ballpark. A fan who attended that first home opener could still find their way around the park although it has been modernized and added to over the years.

I was vaguely aware this event was upcoming but it wasn't until I went into Dunkin' Donuts for my usual tea and 2 donuts that I realized the date was upon us. They had Cubbie donuts.

No, it's not a new flavor. It's regular DD with vanilla frosting and red and white frosting stripes applied. Fortunately, there wasn't a price differential between this and any other donut, even the Peeps ones. Those are donuts with either a pink or yellow Peep in the center. I had to get a Cubbie donut.

It dawned on me in the middle of the day, that I don't remember seeing a donut for the White Sox. Granted, their colors are black and white, but you could still do the stripes. It would be an extra bit of white and then dark stripes. They have a black and white "marble" donut already. Maybe they felt it wouldn't be distinctive enough from the marble.

I also wonder how popular this was. When I was at DD, they had 4 left. They tend to have lots in the back so perhaps there were more that I didn't see. If they put White Sox and Cubs donuts in the same store, I wonder which ones would sell out first? I'll have to pay attention to see if they do something for the Bear, Bulls and Blackhawks, not that I care, mind you, about any of those teams, but colored frosting covered donuts are fun.

June 6th is National Donut Day. Mark your calendars now.

Beverage:  Berry Flavored Seltzer

Deb

Smile. It's Spring

Grumble.

I've been in my car all week. I'm not sleeping the best either because my brain in processing the next day's road trip. It's a huge job and it fell onto my shoulders and that keeps my brain going and going when I really want it to just be quiet and rest.

So, on the drive this morning, I finally found a radio station I could tolerate. It plays oldies from the 1960's through the 1980's. If they get to late 1980's, I'm not real certain of the song or the artist, but I've enjoyed the mix, although I heard "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John twice yesterday; once on the way up and once on the way back. (That's a post for this weekend. More on radio music upcoming.)

I find myself drifting. You know the feeling. You're concentrating on the drive and then, suddenly, you realize a section of pavement has passed by and your brain was off somewhere. My best friend was killed in a head on collision 13 years ago when she fell asleep while driving home from work. When I find myself nodding or not paying attention, I drink lots of water and turn the radio up, forcing myself to sing along to songs I really hated when they were popular. (I'm looking at you "Night Moves".)

There was a dusting of snow on the ground, the deck and the Jeep this morning. Grumble. The air was filled with snow. Grumble. There was slick pavement and people pretending it didn't matter if they drove 70. Grumble. I don't want to be here yet I'm forced to be. Grumble. And the tea wasn't strong enough. Grumble.

Then, the sun came out as I worked my way north and, the radio station started a song that shoved all those "I'm too tireds" out of my head. Maybe you know this.

This is John Fogerty's homage to baseball, "Centerfield". You can't listen to this and not be happy. Right after this, the announcer said opening day is 2 weeks away.

Now, I'm not that much of a baseball fan anymore. I was a die hard Cubs fan, but when they started paying people millions of dollars, I lost interest. The steroid scandal and the fact that it would cost me upwards of $70 to attend a game at Wrigley Field just reinforce my feeling that it's not something fun anymore. Professional sports isn't. Still, I hear this song, and the memories of summer evenings spent watching baseball on TV or watching the high school baseball and softball teams play make me smile.

Then, I get to where I'm going and the sun is shining.

Opening day is 2 weeks away. "Put me in coach. I'm ready to play, today." It's spring.

Beverage:  water

Deb

Not Quite 40 Years Ago

Ron Santo was inducted, posthumously, to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday. He was part of the Cubs franchise my dad loved. The Cubs were so much a part of his life. He told us stories about buying a train ticket to Chicago when the Milwaukee Road ran passenger service through Northeast Iowa. The train would arrive in Monona around 2 a.m. Dad and his friends would ride the train to Chicago, hop onto the red line elevated train and take that to Wrigley Field. Bleacher seats, in the war years, cost a buck. They would sit in the bleachers of the Friendly Confines cheering on the team and, when the game was over, reverse the process to get home. They usually arrived back in Monona around 2:30 a.m. A friend would drive him home and he'd get about 3-4 hours of sleep before starting the day. I don't know how many times he did this but he loved to tell the story.

Growing up, we had an old box radio about the size of my sewing box. It was brown, I remember that clearly, with a big dial on the front that moved the red line to the various stations. In the summer, when he would go out to the fields in the afternoon, dad would put the radio in the east southeast windows of the porch, meticulously tune the dial and fiddle with the antenna until we heard the first verse of, "Lets Go! Batter Up! We're taking the afternoon off! It's a beautiful day for a ball game!" Then the booming voice of Jack Brickhouse came out of the radio, "The Chicago Cubs are on the air!" It was a marvel to me, unknowing as I was about radio waves back then, that we were listening to something going on live in Chicago. Chicago! That's another place, a big place, so different from Cedar Rapids or Des Moines, the biggest cities I'd been to at that time.

It was someone's responsibility to listen to the game and, when dad came in from the fields, after about an hour or 90 minutes, tell him what the score was. Plus, it was not just tell him the score, it was also our responsibility to tell him who had hit a home run. He was a huge fan of Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins, so when they were slated to play, it was doubly important to keep tabs on the game for him. That responsibility usually fell to me, as the oldest. My siblings didn't have the patience to sit at the table and keep one ear on a scratchy radio broadcast and do something else. They wanted these summer days to be filled with other things.

When we started taking family vacations, one of the first places dad wanted to go was Chicago, and, by extension, Wrigley Field. We'd gone to a minor league baseball game in Cedar Rapids, the Cedar Rapids Cardinals, in preparation for the Chicago trip. The team at that time, was affiliated with the hated St. Louis Cardinals. I don't remember anything about that game other than it was chilly at night and my grandmother, with whom we were staying, disapproved of the excursion. But, the trip met dad's expectations for us sitting for 7 innings so he bought tickets to the Chicago Cubs vs the Houston Astros.

Somewhere, I have the program for the game. I can't tell you if the Cubs are up or in the field. This was a Friday and "Ladies Day" at the ballpark. Women got in free to grandstand and bleacher seats. We had reserved grandstand seats which were discounted. Our tickets were not mailed. We had to go to something called the "Will Call" window, a term we were unfamiliar with. The smartly dressed ushers showed us where to go and dad handed each of us a ticket. I felt like I was on top of the world. This was Chicago! This was the Cubs! I didn't know anyone in my grade who had gone to a real live major league baseball game!

Billy Williams was still with the team at this point. Santo was gone. Ernie Banks, another stalwart of the Cubs, was managing the team after the then manager, Whitey Lockman, was ejected in a May game. Dad was in his glory pointing out all the players and where he used to sit when he came in the 1940's. We walked all over the park, from one end to another. We got hot dogs, cotton candy, soda, peanuts and ice cream. Dad taught me how to keep score. The scorecard and a pencil were 50 cents. It was a bit chilly in the shade but the atmosphere of Wrigley Field could not be matched anywhere.

The Cubs lost 6-4. I remember that. Dad and mom conferred and we came back the next day. We had seats to the left, on the third base side. I remember my youngest brother had to go to the bathroom, so dad took him. During that interlude, Billy Williams came up to bat and hit a homerun over the left field wall. Billy was rounding third base when dad got to the top of the ramp to see anything. He was very disappointed that he'd missed seeing it.

It's too expensive for me to attend a Cubs game now. It's relatively easy to get there. I'd take the communter train into the city and hop on the same red line elevated train to stop at Addison Street. The park is a 2 block walk west. There are statues of Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, Jack Brickhouse and Harry Carey around the park. Dad despised Harry Carey because he announced St. Louis Cardinal and Chicago White Sox games for years before coming to the Cubs. He replaced Jack Brickhouse in the announcer's booth, a move dad always resented of "his" Cubs.

All of this came back into memory as I read the stories of Santo's induction. I don't pay much attention to baseball anymore. I quit caring deeply when salaries became more than the gross national product of some small countries. I can't tell you, right now, where the Cubs stand in their division or who plays for them. I do know that it doesn't matter where they are in the standings, Wrigley Field will almost always be sold out for every game, such are the Cub faithful.

Dad never got to sit in the box seats down front. I was going to do that for him the year he died. He was going to retire and come visit for a week. We were going to take the trains to the ballpark and watch a game up close and personal. I thought of all that on Sunday. Ron Santo's induction should have come earlier but it's still important that he's in the Hall of Fame now. Some day, I should go visit Cooperstown.

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

Contemplating Change

Tomorrow is an anniversary, a major anniversary. I might not get to blog tomorrow because this gigantic project in the city requires that I be there at 9:00 and work pretty much on my feet for most of the day. I came home on Thursday with aches in places I haven't ached in years. It's a lot of walking but it has to be done. Yet, I resolved to mark tomorrow because it's very important.

My dad died 20 years ago on January 3, 1991. He suffered from pulmonary fibrosis. He was a truck driver for CRST out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He had been in declining health and knew that his time was limited, but he continued on because he loved doing what he was doing. Driving a semi allowed him to fulfill that wanderlust he had. He went all over the U.S. He bought a camera and took pictures of his travels. Every time he was in Chicagoland, we would get together. I probably got to see him more in the last 4 years of his life than I had in the 4 years before that.

But he fell ill coming back from a run to Houston in December of 1990. He was having problems breathing and stopped at a small emergency room at a town outside of Tyler, Texas. They felt they couldn't treat what was ailing him so he was taken to the University of Texas Medical Center in Tyler. Mom got a call that he wasn't doing well. My mother, sister and I took the train from Chicago to Tyler to be with him. I couldn't stay for the duration and returned home on December 30th. My brother, Dan, took the train to Tyler, arriving there as I arrived in Chicago. Dad died at 2 p.m. on the 3rd. Iowa had been in the Rose Bowl that year, but they lost. Mom remembered that he seemed to be aware of the game on the TV in his room. The funeral was the 8th and his body was donated to the University of Iowa for research into the disease that claimed him.

My dad's death changed everything. That's a big statement but, as I look back across the landscape of 20 years, it's the truth. My mother remarried a year later, to her high-school sweetheart who had lost his wife in May of 1991. Carole really doesn't remember my dad. Dale has been "grandpa" to her. I used to get really upset when she'd call him that because he isn't her "real" grandpa. I don't know when it hit me that he's "grandpa" because he's real. My dad is someone whose photo hangs on the wall.

The real change came in my immediate family life. There were things we glossed over, things that bothered us. Grief was not unknown in my life. My father's parents came from large families. I never knew my dad's mother, she died in 1944, but I knew all her sisters. I knew all my dad's father's siblings. The extended family that got together for July 4th picnics was upwards of 50 people. As people passed on, there were funerals. I have memories of at least one a year for a time. My spouse, on the other hand, came from a very small family. Death was not something he had experience with. He had gone years without seeing the inside of a funeral home.

The death of a parent is unlike any death I'd experienced. Experts agree there are 7 stages of grief; shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression and reflection and loneliness, the upward turn, reconstruction and working through, and finally, acceptance and hope. How you go through these stages is up to you. Grieving is a highly personal event and no one is allowed to tell you to "get on with it". That last statement is the crux of what happened over the next 10 years.

I couldn't grieve in my own way. Years later, our marriage counselor said the depression my spouse had lived with all his life couldn't allow me to be depressed as is natural with grief. His depression had to be cared for first. If there was anything left, my needs would be met. It was a mix that could not sustain a relationship. Unless something changed, the outlook was grim.

My therapist said Dad's death and the natural grief that accompanied it, started the chain of events that ended with divorce. Grieving a marriage is like grieving a death. Sometimes you go through those stages while you're married in an attempt to hold it together. I remember trying to bargain with God to get dad well enough to die in Iowa surrounded by his entire family. I remember trying to bargain with God to get me to the next therapist appointment without screaming at my ex.

In the 20 years since Dad's death, things about him have faded. I can't hear his voice anymore. I used to be able to call up the sound. I see CRST trucks in Chicagoland. He would have been here more and more until he retired, probably in the mid-to-late 1990's. I used to start crying every time I saw one. Now, I say, "Hi Dad!" and count myself lucky that my dad is with me today. Sometimes, if I'm particularly troubled, I'll ask a question. "What do you think I should do, dad?"

I bought a bottle of his aftershave and I used to keep a cotton ball under my pillow for the first few years. The scent was a comfort. Now, I open up the bottle for a whiff when I'm dusting.

The plant I received from his funeral still thrives in the NE corner of the living room. I water it every week. It seems to be happy and blooms regularly. I rarely think about where I got it or how long I've had it. I turn it periodically to try to keep it growing straight. If it outgrows this pot, I think it will have to be on the floor. At one point, it lost a lot of leaves and I thought it was dying. But it recovered. Carole's cat, Faux, used to lie in the pot when he was a kitten.

Twenty years is a long time. I still cry sometimes when I think of the loss. The change has been huge in that time, some good and some bad. Dad never got to sit in box seats at Wrigley Field and watch his beloved Cubs. He never got to teach me how to build and repair things. I finally threw out the list I kept for years with all the things he knew that I wanted to learn. I've moved on, continuing on the road he departed. I still grieve, I always will. Some things will set me off and I shed tears.

I don't think I'd want it any other way.

Beverage:  China Black tea

Deb

A Year Ago

Chicagoland had been rained on day and night for some 4 days. We received something like 17 inches over a 4 day period. It began on September 12th and didn't quit until the evening of September 15th. If it wasn't pouring, it was overcast and drizzle.

I had a guest at that time. I'd met a guy and he flew to Chicago for the week. The weather on the 12th prohibited his arrival at 2 p.m. It was 8:30 p.m. before he arrived.

I thought we had a marvelous week. We went out to eat a lot, in spite of us going grocery shopping Saturday, dodging a torrential rain. We went to Milwaukee to watch the Cubs play the Astros because the Houston area was going through a hurricane. We went shopping for souvenirs. We went into the city so he could say he'd been to Chicago. We went to Wrigley Field.

Over my objections, he bought tickets from a broker so he could see the Cubs play the Brewers at Wrigley Field. I never found out how much he spent.

He spent a lot on me. There were the meals we ate out. He bought some computer equipment so he could set up his lap top. He bought groceries and a couple of souvenirs. He paid for gas. I tried to pay for a few meals but he refused to allow it. I was giving him a wonderful week and the cost was minor compared to his vacation.

We parted at 5:00 a.m. at O'Hare on Friday, September 19th. His delay getting here had earned him a free ticket, as he had given up his seat for a woman to get home to her daughter. He swore Thursday night that free ticket was to come back to see me, in April probably because October to March was the busy time for his work.

I wanted to believe him. When I kissed him goodbye at the airport, he held me close and said, "It will be soon. I promise." It was all I could do to drive home through the tears. Betsy and Rascal liked him and were a bit confused that he wasn't in the house now.

The days passed. He stayed in touch for a week and then total silence. He had been the guardian of his sister's two boys. The oldest had gone to live with his father in Las Vegas that August and that weekend was a weekend of sloppy conversation over the computer and my just being at my keyboard while he vented. Still, he had the youngest who had made it clear he didn't want to go to Vegas.

Something happened that first week of October. I don't know what, but communication stopped. Emails and phone calls went unanswered. I sent an email toward the middle of October saying that I would box up the things he'd left behind and there were a few, and ship them back. Plus, I had calculated the cost of what he'd spent on me and would begin paying that off. I wasn't going to be seen as a gold-digger, or worse.

I got a reply and he begged me to hang on, that he would be better and I just needed to be patient for a couple weeks, or through the first of November. He would explain as much as he could then, but right now, it was too raw and he didn't want to be seen as a complainer.

The first of November came and went. Nothing. Again I sent an email saying he was to expect a box and again, there was a, "No please don't send me anything" email in return. His mother's birthday was, I think, November 12th. He mentioned he needed to shop "for someone special whose birthday is at the end of the month". "I need to make up for being such a slimeball," he said.

My birthday came and went. My daughter and my girlfriends remembered. Ten days later, he contacted me to say he was considering a promotion. I know it's petty, but I mentioned how Thanksgiving was lonely because I spent my birthday alone. He fell all over himself apologizing for missing it when he specifically had referenced it right after his mother's birthday. Then he said he had to go and would not tell me when we'd next talk.

That was it. I boxed up half of his stuff and shipped it back. A week later, I boxed up the rest and shipped it back. He contacted me Christmas Eve. He was drunk and his nephew was in Vegas visiting his father. He said he missed our conversations. He missed how understanding I was, how wise. But he wouldn't give me a date for when we'd next talk. There were always excuses.

I issued yet another ultimatum in January. On the 26th, he sent an email saying that he knew I would do whatever was best for me. That was it.

I fell. I fell hard. Girlfriends will vouch that I spent many, many nights crying myself to sleep. I never believed anyone could like me for me and he claimed he did. He was the only man I had ever considered moving from Wheaton for.

I have dreaded this week and the memories that would dance with it. Having the new cats has helped a lot because my energy is directed toward them. There has been more drama within my WOW guild and I haven't done a good job of dealing with that. Sometimes, my people skills leave a bit to be desired. I try but it doesn't always come out as nice as I would like. So, I have been able to keep the memories at bay.

But tonight, knowing that this marks the end of the week that he was here, the memories are like ripe apples waiting to be picked. I've been listening to Nat King Cole all evening. One of my favorite albums is called "Night Lights" and there is a song on that album called "Sometimes I Wonder". I have played it quite a bit tonight. These lyrics catch me:

Sometimes I wonder when I'm deep in memory.

If you ever give a little thought to me.

And while I'm under this old magic spell of you,

Sometimes I wonder if you ever wonder, too.

Beverage: Cold Assam

Deb