Baltimore.
Childhood memories are so interesting. Close your eyes and think back. As far as you can go. Is it vivid and in color? Is it hazy and in black and white? How long is it? Snap shot? A movie?
How old are you? Can you go back, leaping into your father’s arms when he gets home from work on a summers day? Or even further? To your mother cradling you to her bosom? Looking into your eyes. Making you smile.
This is about life in Baltimore from the POV of my six year old self. It’s 1964. and we live on Mayfield Avenue in a row house just off Belair Road. The Earle Movie Theater is at the corner. Little Flower Roman Catholic Church is up and across the busy street. In the opposite direction along Mayfield, up the Avenue and around the corner was my elementary school. I’d say I grew up in Baltimore but it is probably more accurate to say I stopped growing there. The adventures I had are indelible yet it has been a long time coming for me to revisit and reclaim the best of times...and the worst.
I expect to shed more than a few tears while composing and
compiling these short stories. Tears of joy mostly. And anguish with regret. It
was, over all, a wonderful time to be alive. Everything was big, bold, and
beautiful. Especially my mother. This was her home town and we went to stay
with my grandmother. Me, my sisters, and my little dog Lucky.
But I digress. Already. My gold mine of Baltimore memory is like a crowded cellar full of once meaningful things kept with hopes that they will again be useful. Sometimes the pile of cherished possessions gets so tall it tumbles over and in re-stacking, everything gets jumbled. Time lines bend and distort. Events blur around the frayed edges of old photographs.
What is nostalgia? A longing to go back? I’ve been back to Mayfield Avenue. I have been past my old school as an adult. Been to the VFW where Uncle Paul volunteered. Been to the cemetery where they brought grandmom and Uncle Joey and ...but those are not the memories of a six year old. So let’s start at the beginning.
When I was little, I would have dreams. Dreams of flying. They were always thrilling and a treat. Looking down at me feet, I would just push off the ground and keep going. Up, up, up until all I could see were tiny lights twinkling far below me. And then I would just start moving along as if it was the most natural thing a boy could do.
Memorial Stadium.
Along the lines of a boy flying high above the earth, the closest I ever came to actual lift-off was my very first baseball game. I can recite seven ninths of the home team Baltimore Orioles, along with their manager, and one famous player on the Cleveland Indians. The minutiae of the game seeped into my pores. To this day, I can remember a ball player more readily than I can remember my cell phone number.
On a brilliant afternoon, my uncles Paul and Carmen took several of us little kids to see a game. I had no idea what was about to take place, or how it would impact my entire life. I was born in summer, and I was born to love the game of baseball. I remember walking, and walking, and walking up and up, and up steep, dark concrete ramps. Winding onward up the spine of some dark steel riveted labyrinth of a beast.
What is enlightenment? Is it the death of darkness? Is it the birth of light? How often have you experienced it? Or heard it described? We walk along the top most level. To one side the bright sunlit skyline of Baltimore soaks up the heat of a sweltering summer. My uncles have not even broken a sweat. Then you see it. To my right. A bright, almost blinding Biblical light at the end of a dark tunnel. We walk toward the light. And suddenly, I am flying. Hovering over the most dazzling, amazing sight I will ever see. Our seats were right behind home plate, so my first mesmerizing gaze at the green turf outlined with a sandy brown infield, gleaming white lines and bases, all over hung by a blue sky took my breath away. I remember my uncle firmly guiding me by my little shoulder up some stairs to our row of seats. And then the Lords of Baseball took the field.
After a while of runs, hits, balls, and strikes; of watching Jim Palmer seemingly stop in mid air with his hand holding the baseball just inches above the pitching mound dirt, before releasing it in a white blur that baffled batters as great and as famous as Frank Robinson, it was time for a bathroom break.
On the way back to our seats, I remember holding a cup of ice-cream with both hands. Carefully concentrating on each step, my uncle Paul leading, my uncle Carmen behind, I heard the click of wooden bat making contact, and the crowd just immediately around us reacting. The next thing I knew, my uncle Carmen just emerged from behind me, his long left arm outstretched and the profile of his body framed by the open sky, his heroic hand open and reaching for something. Then I saw it whiz into the palm of his hand with a smack and then plop. Right behind my seat! These were the type of folding wooden bleacher chairs which would pop up when you stood.
And then there it was. For a brief, pristine, magical moment. In front of me! On the peanut shell littered concrete under my seat. White cowhide with one hundred and eight red stitches. Perfectly round, still, and just bursting with possibility. A major league baseball!
In a flash the next thing I saw were a bunch of hands and forearms reaching down. Instantly that vision of the Holy Grail vanished. From that moment, I understood the value of a baseball. It was also the closest I have ever come to a foul pop in my life.
