We're on a Mission....

"And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters."
Field of Dreams, 1989

Charlie says he went to a game at Wrigley Field once: he thinks it was about 1948. I remember going to a game there once too; the memory is vivid even though I wasn't very old. The day was cold; the stadium was empty; the Cubs were shut out. I couldn't sit still, but it didn't matter; there was no one sitting anywhere close to us. What year was it? I don't know but it has now taken me a half century to get back there.

This pilgrimage...and yes, that's the right word for it...has always been just around the corner, a possibility, an option, but never reached the threshold of a plan, a date, a promise....or purchasing tickets. This year I watched the calendar for the Cubs/Cardinals dates like someone looking for the winning numbers in the lottery. There they were: dates in July, away from planting (so I thought!) months from harvest, a Monday night game, perfect for a drive up from our neck of the woods to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. Shopping for those seats was a labor of love, as I imagined the big green and white manual scoreboard in center field with the pennants atop snapping in the breeze, the bleacher seats above the ivy from which disgruntled fans would fling opposing teams' homers, the fans watching from the housetops across Waveland and Sheffield. This view is what we'd watched on television ever since cable brought us the wonders of baseball on WGN. That was just after Harry Caray joined the Cubs as announcer. Hearing Harry back on the job and watching the Cards in our living room on a summer's eve was about as good as it got for two fans of modest means.

The caravans made their way to Chicago from three different directions on three different interstates, touching base by text and photo...a Five Guys break here, a brew pub there, our lunch at a busy Culver's in Geneseo, Illinois, joining three tables of ladies playing bridge and a remarkably quiet clutch of Girl Scouts in pastel t shirts.

The western Missouri contingent and the St. Louis contingent come to a traffic jam at exit 267 on I-55 simultaneously. We throw down our windows and wave like crazy people: what are the odds? Tracy has traveled thousands of miles to get to St. Louis...and now has ridden another 300 plus miles to watch two teams she doesn't root for play ball! It is Wrigley, of course; she says her husband envies her opportunity to see a game there.

The Illinois toll roads separate us. Text traffic:

Mark: We got delayed at the toll booth. Was coins only and the person in front of us kept throwing pennies. Finally gave up and drove on....

Kenzie: Wait that was us!!! The first 3 toll booths stole all the quarters....

The walk down Addison takes us under the EL. Levi, his neck craned to watch the train, has more big league ballparks under his belt than most fans. He swings and skips between his daddy and great grandpa. Ben is wearing number 7, Holliday's number. Charlie's shirt says "SINCE 56", a reference to Millie and Charlie's 50th wedding anniversary. We tease him, "SINCE didn't have much of a chance in the big leagues if he wore number 56!" The sidewalks and sports bars are teeming, a mass of Baby Bear Blue and Redbird Red.

The seats are heavenly...the panorama of green field and the mosaic of the crowd unrolls before us . We can see the whole field, every position, the ballet of adjustments between pitcher and batter.

The crowd in the ballpark is a live thing, a moody creature flexing and shrugging depending on the caprice of the game. It's a new experience, watching your team play off their home turf.

Levi applauds with the crowd, much to the delight of the Cubs fans behind us. He will get his chance to cheer for the Cards... The lights come on as the sky fades from lavender to blue velvet....

..and then....it rains. Because that's the kind of baseball year it has been. We wait..and wait...and finally open our umbrellas and splash our way back to the cars, our night at the ballpark shortened by an inning and a half.

To paraphrase Harry Caray, it was still "a bee-yooo-ti-ful day for baseball...": a one of a kind trip to a place rooted in the past (never mind those giant annoyingly bright jumbotrons), a place part of every fan's fiber, a game part of our collective memory for years to come....

Actor Bill Murray, rabid Cubs fan, made news the next day calling Cardinals fans 'satan's messengers'. Seems a bit uncalled for and extreme. The Cub fans sitting behind us were loud and not shy about jeering at a Cardinal player or two. But visiting with them after the seventh inning stretch made it clear that no offense was intended to red clad fans: we are all part of Baseball Nation, Red and Blue.

After all, we all stand as one at seventh inning stretch time to sing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game'...

.... because we are at Wrigley.

P.S...More text traffic:

Mark: Approaching B-U-T-ful Joliet. At least that's what Laura claims from her youthful memories.
Me: We are just a few from I-55...We hear Joliet, we think prison...More childhood memories..
Me: Field trip for my 5th grade class.
Mark: I hear you were in maxim security.
Kenzie: "We're gettin the band back together."
Mark: What band?
Kenzie: "We're on a mission from God."
Me: Nice one! Sing it!

ELWOOD No, they don't got my address, I falsified my renewal. I put down 1060 West Addison,
JAKE 1060 West Addison?...That's Wrigley Field!

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Roots

All his successors gone before him have done ’t; and all his ancestors that come after him may.

William Shakespeare

It is Independence Day, and we traditionally celebrate it by exercising our freedom to assemble. We feast in our bounty on hunks of sauced and grilled meats, red,white and blue dessert creations, homemade ice cream and whatever the garden gods have seen fit to ripen. We play out of doors whatever the weather, kids and grown ups together, to tide the young ones over as long as possible from the paper bags of things that go boom in the night.

Thus has it been, as Shakespeare would say, for those gone before us...and the memories are so ripe and sweet from year to year, that we hope those that come after us pass their Independence Days in the very same rhythm, growing a family history from deep roots.

The Fourth has deep roots at my folk's farm in Moniteau county.  Aunts and uncles and cousins and grannies gathered from corners round the state beginning back in the early '80s.  There was a volleyball net, and corkball against the wood doors of the building we call 1916.

Lee and Ann were the beautiful women at the lower end of the age bracket (ages three and up); they were celebrated with their very own t shirts, emblazoned HeebieJeebie on the back.

Years passed; kids grew; the family continued to gather for food and drink, merriment and music, hikes and horseshoes.

We grew good roots.  Fast forward twenty or thirty years.  There are still kids like Aaron ready to throw horseshoes for the very first time. And littler kids, like Josh, sulking because the adults think a 2 1/2 pound shoe in his hand could be considered weaponized.

Is there more than one manufacturer of horseshoes? I'm fairly certain these are the same shoes my grandfather and his sons tossed into the fescue at the farm near Holts Summit years ago.  The red and green paint is barely a patina.  The shoes were forged in Duluth.  Lizzie wants to know if they came from real horses...

As it has for lo these many summers, the screened breezeway of the former apple market and current summer resort for houseplants channels the evening breeze and keeps the flies at bay while we eat supper.

But even dessert of anniversary cake and birthday cherry crisp leaves too much daylight before fireworks time...a trip down to the creek behind the 4 wheeler gives the kids a chance to kick off their shoes and tiptoe across the cherty gravel and cool stream looking for rocks to take home.  Chunks of Moniteau county sandstone and limestone find their way up the hill, solid stepping stones and artifacts for Atchison county gardens.

Kids and water and rocks...thus has it ever been....

We remember now...

...and we will remember when.

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June is Bustin' out all Over!

Like the periodic pop of fireworks this week before Independence Day, the flowers in my garden can hardly contain themselves.  The explosion of color is almost audible; its all you can do not to put your hands over your ears to protect them from the impact.  The daylilies and coneflowers are abuzz with visitors: crawling with bees, tickled by Red Admirals and crowned with the occasional Tiger Swallowtail.  Robins bathe and groom themselves in the dripping fountain; cardinals scuffle and chase in the lilac; high above the third floor swallows ride invisible breezes around the chimney. June may be busting out all over in song, but this week before July, the garden is positively volcanic.

I feel like celebrating too!  The calendar page still says June and I've just finished planting the last front porch pots.  I've tucked cannas and fountain grass, coleus and cleome, amid the waving wands of the hemerocallis; I've carved niches for colorful annuals in the rain pounded slabs of soil in the erstwhile vegetable garden of volunteer herbs and left behind tomatoes.  Up close, the back border is still a mess of sprouts and grass, but I have surveyed the handiwork of June in the rest of the yard and now pronounce it good.....and done!  The trailer is out of the driveway; the used pots are stacked by the dirt shed; it is time to contemplate and stroll, water and take pictures, and generally appraise with satisfaction the plant kingdom from the lofty perch of our porch....

Whether June has been dry or sodden, hot or not, the end of mum planting usually coincides with the first of July. Thus does the greenhouse season move seamlessly from the roar of heaters and early mornings and counting pots and filling dirt to the more relaxed routine of walking lines, dewy toes and the background music of the pumps delivering the stream of water through the leaders to each individual plant. When we all say, 'Til February!' and drive off that last day of June to our own gardens or vacations, it is always cause to celebrate.

The calendar page turns on the boys and girls of summer on the baseball diamond.  The half pints finish the rain soaked season with double headers and freezy pops....

...and Aaron hits a home run in his last game..."without any errors", he reports. While most of the county dodges showers, the Tarkio ballfield enjoys a gloriously sunny weekend for the final State Line League tournament.  We bask in the rays and cheer the home town Cubs team onto a second place trophy. 

 For those whose avocation, not vocation, is baseball, June sets the sun on organized baseball and ushers in the season of swimming.  Red Cross swimming lessons has been part and parcel of summer for three decades of our life: from the days of bus rides from Westboro for the young swimmers to shuttling four different grandchildren to three different classes from 9 am to noon.  For many of those years and two full generations of kids, the very same teachers have given weeks of their summer to community and chlorine, coaxing reluctant small fry into the water, persuading them to dip their curly heads into a strange and scary environment, and cheering on the minor victories and accomplishments and progress to independence and self sufficiency in the water.  From swimming corners to  back dives, more reasons to celebrate fun in the sun in July.  

Speaking of July, we got a head start, a sneak preview, a warmup, for fireworks the other night when our local nursing home, Tarkio Rehab and Health Care, set off their annual fireworks display on Friday night.  Such a quintessential small town type of event, the perfect example of unselfish neighborliness for all of us free riders in our backyards.  A perfect appetizer for  both those yearning to purchase the wherewithal for family performances and those desiring the full choreographed son et lumiere of the 4th of July extravaganza.  Like Judy Collins, I've looked at the 4th from "both sides now"....and can truthfully report that the American experience of fireworks and the 4th is both wonderful and appropriate whether it's micro...or super sized.

Our family has split its Independence Days over the years between Millie and Charlie's front yard and the driveway and bin floor of Redbarn in Moniteau county.  For years, we gathered at my folks' farm  for volleyball and pork roast, music and fireworks when the current old folks were middle aged and the current moms and dads were toddlers. Often Annie blew out candles on a patriotically red, white and blue iced birthday cake; why waste a good party when your birthday barely misses the 4th? 

  Last year, we resurrected that tradition, playing audience while Aaron and Lizzie and Matt choreographed the poppers and parachutes and fountains til the dew settled and the smoke settled tight on the grass.  

This summer we have even more reason to party, gathering to measure out sixty years of celebration, dedication and devotion for my mother and father's 60th wedding anniversary. Sixty years is worthy of serious celebration; why not choose July 4th and multi-task the merriment!

Though June has been fraught with worry and weather, decisions and delays, that page is turned and July beckons...count your blessings and enjoy!

In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.

Aldo Leopold

Adventureland

I can see her now.

Laura and I are having a mid morning snack...maybe an Oreo or a handful of Pretzel Stix, maybe some Koolaid, or perhaps a real treat, a Fizzy, the tablet plopped into cold water in one of those jewel toned aluminum tumblers.  Kid food for the '60s; bright colored, effervescent, and tasting faintly of dissolved metals.  Or perhaps I just imagined that?

But my mother is perched gracefully on a stool at the divider my father built in our suburban home to create a kitchen and a dining room.   In my mind's eye, I picture a plastic tumbler of Pepsi on the counter there, but I don't need my imagination to know she's reading a book.

There were always books.  The folio art books, the German Bible, the volumes of popular fiction by Ernest K. Gann (Fate Is the Hunter) and James Michener, the colorful slip covers of the The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea , all housed on the dining room side of the divider.  The Complete Sherlock Holmes and a hefty volume of Mark Twain were within easy reach on Saturday afternoons whenever my mom popped a big bowl of popcorn.  There was an antique volume on the Great War between two monkish bookends on the bottom shelf of a writing desk in the living room and two volumes of Arnold Toynbee's Study of History.  My father owned Will and Ariel Durant's multi volume Story of Civilization even before the series was completed.  These stately books seemed to me to lend gravity to our suburban existence with their mere presence; Alpha Bits or Sugar Smacks consumed in the same room with the Durants were transformed into brain food.

My parents were the smartest people I knew. I innately realized that this house of books and music was a good place in which to grow up.  And there was no better guide to the wide world of the mind's eye than my mother. It seemed to me that there wasn't a book she hadn't read. My mother was both example and inspiration, leading me down the Book Trail and opening the doors to the old friends she knew and loved and wanted me to meet and love too.

When I see Abbie or Lizzie, Gabe or Aaron, nestled on the couch, oblivious to what anyone else is doing...and even what they should be doing, I am eight years old again on a hot summer's day walking up the narrow sidewalk to the Orland Park Library.  It was a mere four rooms and the cooling effects of the window unit didn't reach much beyond the first room where the librarian waited at her desk to check for our library cards. With the blinds pulled against the hot sun and one light on the ceiling, it was so dim I could barely read the titles on the wall devoted to children's books. Like the grandkids, I read my favorites over and over...all the books by Marguerite Henry and all the books by Walter Farley (yes, there was a horse phase!) I picked out Newberry winners and Nancy Drew mysteries, science fiction by Madeline LÉngle and Ursula LeGuin. Our copies of An Old Fashioned Girl and Eight Cousins had belonged to my mother and were coming unstrung and unglued at home, but, old fashioned girl that I was, I borrowed the sequels to these classics from the library.

As I got older but not old enough for truly adult novels, my mother pointed me to more serious and challenging books she read as a girl....I read my way through thick oilcloth bound volumes of Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard, finally working my way up to the thickest book of them all...The Count of Monte Cristo.  It was short and stout and bound in bright yellow.

I'm still a sucker for the magazine articles that appear seasonally, touting the best summer reads for beach, or travel, novels or history.  My perennial vision of ideal summertime includes a canvas book bag behind the seat of the car and a long week of evenings to browse through.  Convenience makes Amazon the library of choice these days as we anxiously await the summer releases of our favorite thrillers, but Amazon also makes it possible to sample and browse for free, to escape the heat...or the doldrums....just like we did years ago amid the dark and stuffy...and slightly musty...shelves of our small town library.