Sifting Through the Past

I went to my mom's house this afternoon to sort through some of her furniture, household furnishings, and personal items, so I could decide what, if anything, I want to keep.  I've put it off, I know, as a means of self-preservation but it's time to get things moving.

It's so strange to walk into my mom's house.  I still feel her presence there but not as strongly as before.  It's like her spirit has, for the most part, drifted away and is no longer inhabiting the house she lived in for more than 40 years.  The fact that her house hasn't been lived in for so long is part of it.  Also, Tracy and Alice have packed up a lot of stuff, so the house has the feel of someone in the process of moving out, of moving on.  I guess, in a way, that's what's happened.  My mom has moved on.

I think I've mentioned this before but it's strange to realize that so much of what one accumulates over a lifetime - furniture, photographs, art, lamps, books, televisions, every day china - all of that stuff - is so important, so necessary to one's life and, yet, after one dies most of it gets dispersed - to stranger in an estate sale (coming soon), to relatives, or to a landfill.

How can it be that all of these items - this stuff - that was so personal to my mom and made my mom who she was and her house what it was - is simply going to be given away or thrown away?  It's mind boggling and a little troubling to me.

How do I decide what to keep?  We have enough stuff at our house, as it is.  Do I keep some of her furniture - the practical stuff - just because it was hers and it will remind me of her?  Or do I keep some of her knick knacks?  In truth, those type of things remind me of her most of all.  Thing like -

• the Eddie George (former Titan running back) autographed photograph
• the Drew Bennett (former Titan wide receiver) note and photograph 
• the letter to her from C.M. Newton (former head basketball coach at Vanderbilt) 
• the framed newspaper articles from the Music City Miracle and the Titans' run to the Super Bowl

Those are some of the things my mom loved and that made up the spirit of who she was as a person.  Sports was such a big part of her life.  Days like today, when the Titans win an exciting game (vs. Tampa Bay), the pain of her loss, her death, is more acute, more immediate, and more visceral.  Damn, she loved sports.

I didn't really find much in her house I wanted, which makes me a little sad.  It's time to go through everything, though, and discard what we don't want that has no value and sell the rest of it at an estate  sale.  It's time to get her house - the house I grew up in - ready to be sold.  It's past time, really.  

At the Beach But Not On the Beach

So, here we are, back in Santa Rosa Beach, this time for Fall Break.  It's our first trip here in the fall and, unfortunately, it's rain, rain and more rain.

Jude texted me from the beach this morning on her morning walk and suggested I bring the boys down to see the waves after last night's storms.  It was cool, actually, with waves bigger than they have ever seen at the beach.  As I walked up from the beach to my truck to go to Ama Vida for coffee, I passed three surfers in wet suits.  Smiling, I told a couple of them that my boys were going to be very excited to watch them surf.

One thing about the beach, for me, is it's always relaxing yet rejuvenating to be here.  In a different life, when I used to regularly go to Litchfield Beach, SC, it was always so nice to be there.  It didn't matter if it was in summer or in December - just being near the ocean, even if I couldn't swim in it - calmed and centered me.  It's still that way.

Our trip down was the easiest so far.  We left at 6 p.m. and drove straight here.  The boys slept a good deal of the way down and the drive passed quickly.  Jude and I listed to a couple of podcasts and just talked.  Our lives are so busy, it's hard to find time to just talk.  About politics, raising children, social media, etc.  It was nice.

Thursday morning, Jude and the boys went to the beach while I nursed a head cold.  I rallied after lunch and went for a 6 mile train run on the Longleaf Pine Trail near our house in Old Florida Village.  I felt strong and had a great run.  I listened to Marc Maron on his WTF pod interviewing Woody Harrelson.

Great interview that inspired me to watch, last night, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.  Dark, comedic and powerful movie that I meant to see when it was released a couple of years ago.  Frances McDormand's performance was breathtaking and worth of the Oscar for best actress she won in 2018.  So good.

The boys and I have had fun watching the NLCS (sweep by the Nationals) and the ALCS (3-2 Astros lead over the Yankees) together.  It's great that they're at an age where we can watch, really watch, baseball together.  As such a big baseball fan, it's special to me just to sit with them and watch baseball, especially when it's not the Dodgers playing.  If you love the game of baseball, like I do and like I think they do, you watch the playoffs and the World Series.  Always, regardless of who is playing.

So, I'll finish my coffee, walk out into the October rain and drive back to our house in Old Florida Village in Santa Rosa Beach.  Cinnamon rolls to eat, board games to play, college football games to watch, trails to run (if the rain stops) and books to read.

Beached and soaking up every minute of it.

Catching Up

Last night, J.P.'s Dodgers played their longtime rival, the Dirtbags, in one of the final games as the fall baseball season winds down.  It's fun to play them because they're our friends and our rivals.  We know the coaches and the parents, not to mention most of the boys.  It's been Dodgers vs. Dirtbags for more than five years, since the boys were seven years old and playing machine pitch baseball in the Rookie League.

We had a bit of makeshift team because a couple of our stronger players were out.  One I knew about but the other's father called me roughly two hours before game time, as I was leaving the office to pick up J.P. and Joe at school.  That's another story entirely but I was frustrated, to say the least, because I work hard to communicate with our parents and make sure I have enough players to play each game.  When I get a last minute cancellation, it's difficult and it affects the entire team.  But, what am I gonna do?

I started J.P. at pitcher and he did well.  Our right fielder, Henry, missed a line drive that would have been a tough catch, and a couple of unearned runs scored in the first inning.  At first base, Wes missed a ground ball down the line in the second inning to allow a third unearned run to score.  J.P. was a little down but he pitched well against a good hitting team.  I don't think he walked anyone.

I brought in Porter to pitch next, the Dodgers' horse.  He allowed a hit but no runs in the third and we scratched out a run in the top of the fourth inning, trailing at that point 3-1.  

Here's where, for me, it got interesting.  I put J.P. in at catcher in the bottom of the fourth inning.  He's a middle infielder - shortstop mostly - who also pitches and plays well in the outfield.  Very versatile.  However, he hadn't played catcher in a game for four or five years, in the machine pitch league - and then it was only once or twice.  He had never caught live pitching.  Until last night.

I was worried.  I shouldn't have been.

I guess by now I shouldn't be surprised but he played catcher like he'd been doing it for years.  It helped, I think, that Porter was pitching.  He throws hard but his control is generally good.  Other than one low ball that got under his glove - and hit the umpire in the shin - J.P. didn't drop a ball.  Porter struck out two or three boys, swinging, and J.P. held the ball every time.  Porter pitched two perfect innings so I didn't get to see how J.P. would do holding runners on or throwing them out stealing.  Still, he was confident, poised, and in command.

I was really, really proud of J.P.  His versatility on the baseball field continues to astound me.  

The icing on the cake is that the Dodgers rallied for 4 runs in the top of the fifth inning to take a 5 - 3 lead.  In the bottom of the fifth inning, Aidan - a Dodgers' regular from years past who isn't playing baseball this fall but was filling in last night - made a great play on a ground ball down the line at third base, throwing the runner out at first by a step.  Wes got the last out of the game when he made a nifty play on a ground ball at first, then hustled back to the bag for the final out.

Final Score:  Dodgers 5, Dirtbags 3.  

       

R.I.P. Sports Illustrated

For better or worse, I am a huge sports fan.  For as long as I can remember, I have loved to play sports, watch sports live and on television and, most of all, to read about sports.

I always admired sportswriters and, for a time growing up, I wanted to be one.

I especially admired national columnists I read weekly in The Sporting News - the first magazine I subscribed to, at the age of 10 or 11 - legends like Dick Young, Art Spander and Joe Falls.  The Sporting News arrived weekly at our house addressed to me and that was big.

Sports Illustrated was different.  It also arrived weekly but it was addressed to my mom, not me.  I couldn't wait for its arrival and to see who was on the cover.  Sometimes but not often, my mom would beat me to the mailbox and read it before me.  Glossy, amazing photographs.  Letter to the Editor.  Faces in the Crowd (young athletes - high school or small college usually).  The Point After.  This Week's Sign That the Apocalypse is Upon Us.  Game stories.

If it was written about in Sports Illustrated, it obviously was a big game from the previous week.  Or, big events, like the Master's, Wimbledon, etc.  It was all there.

And long form pieces, which were my favorite part of the magazine.  Features.  I loved reading them.   In fact, in high school during study hall, I would pull bound editions of old Sports Illustrated magazines from the stacks and read long form pieces from years gone past.

Such great writers, some of whom recently died.  Dan Jenkins.  Frank Deford.  S.L. Price.  Gary Smith.  Tim Layden.  And so very many more.

Later, when I left for college, my mom gave me my own subscription to Sports Illustrated as a Christmas gift.  And she kept giving that Christmas gift to me, year after year, until she died eight months ago.

So many times over the years, we compared notes on that week's Sports Illustrated.  Did you see the article by Gary Smith on . . . ?  And on and on and on it went.

No questions, I inherited my love of sports - and Sports Illustrated - from my mom.  Now, she's gone and for all intents and purposes, after yesterday, Sports Illustrated is gone, too.  Half of the staff laid off as an internet publisher from Seattle - Maven - takes over.  Bloggers and contract writers will replace staffers.  More video, less written content.

Like everyone else in the magazine industry, Sports Illustrated has been on life support for a few years.  Writers have departed.  Bi-weekly issues, at best.  Now this.

I hate that my boys and I won't have Sport Illustrated to bond over in the years to come.  I hate that we won't share that experience the way my mom and I did.  I miss my mom terribly and I will miss Sports Illustrated, too.

My mom would have been sad about the demise of Sports Illustrated.  I know I am.

Where's My Popsicle?

(Tuesday morning at Crema on Hermitage Ave near downtown, gazing out at the giant Peabody Plaza project across the street)

Sunday afternoon, I took J.P. to a soccer game in Bellevue.  It was ghastly hot for the end of September.  95 degrees.  Three degrees off the record of 98 in 1953.  Ridiculous.

Because it was so hot, we stopped at Las Paletas in 12South and I bought 20 popsicles for his teammates and siblings.  Roughly 80 dollars worth of popsicles in the end, which I packed in ice in a cooler.

As luck would have it, J.P.'s game against a TSC (Tennessee Soccer Club) team was moved to field 20, which is the farthest field from the parking lot.  As a result, my friend, Giles, and I had to lug the tent I brought for the team and the cooler through the grass, across several soccer fields, to field 20.  Giles and I set the tent up for the players and I carried the cooler to a shady area across the field, where the parents were sitting to watch the game.

After watching five minutes of the game and seeing how well the TSC team passed the ball - J.P.'s team does not pass the ball well, not at all - I knew exactly how the game would go.  J.P.'s team would keep it tight in the first half and TSC would wear them down and pull away in the second half and beat them soundly.  Sure enough, the score at the end of the first half was 0 - 0.  The final score was 5 - 0, in favor of TSC.

It was a frustrating game for the boys to play and for the parents to watch.  The boys were hot and tired.  Worn out, really, and down.  Perfect, I thought, I'll cheer them up with Las Paletas' popsicles.  What could be better, right?

I retrieved the cooler and walked across the soccer field.  I handed a freezer bag to Giles and I grabbed one and we preceded to hand out the popsicles to the boys.  And this is where, for me, things took a turn.

Not a single boy thanked me (or Giles, that I could see) for the popsicles.  Coach Gordon did.  The siblings' parents I gave popsicles to were demonstratively appreciative, as were the parents to whom I gave the popsicles I had left.  But not the boys, J.P.'s teammates.

And that really chapped my ass.

One of my greatest fears, as a father, is that my boys are growing up with a sense of entitlement.  They sit on the glass at 16 of the Predators' games.  They sit on the third row, almost dead center court, at Belmont University basketball games.  They sit in the club section at Titans' games.  They play on multiple sports teams although, with the exception of J.P.'s soccer team, we've avoided travel sports for the most part.  They have all the sports equipment they possibly could want.

Last but certainly not least, J.P., Joe and all of J.P.'s teammates attend one of the two most prestigious, academically challenging private schools in town, University School Nashville.  It's not cheap and it gets more expensive every year.  For Jude and me, paying for private school is not easy, and I know that's the case for some of J.P.'s teammates' parents, too.

What I don't think I see enough - from my boys and from the other boys, too - is a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what we do, as parents, and for how hard we work to provide them with the life they have.

Whose fault is that?  Ours?  Maybe.  Maybe we, as parents, give them too much.  Maybe we don't make things hard enough for them.  Maybe there's no struggle.  No failure.  No adversity.  Nothing to prepare them for how hard and callous life can and will be at times, when they're adults.

The thought of my boys being soft and unprepared for the rigors and struggles of life terrifies me.

How do we, as parents, get the message across to these boys?  That they have to work hard, always, and that nothing in life is free or comes without a cost.

And how do we teach them to appreciate what they have, what their parents are providing for them?  How do we teach them that not everyone has what they have?

I struggle with that every single day.

Sunday night, I remarked to Jude, perhaps unfairly, that all of our boys' - all of these private schools boys' - approaches to life could be summed up in one phrase.

Where's my popsicle?