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You never know all there is to know about someone even when that someone is your child. A story that is beyond believing but is true. I was familiar with this story but had no idea just how bizarre it was.
Philadelphia May 2026
John had been to a restaurant called Dandelion and knew that any restaurant that had English and Pub in its description was a place I should go to.
It was crowded and loud and lively and the rooms had old crown molding around the ceiling and a chandelier in the middle and a boarded-up fireplace. It was very dimly lit and most of the light came from a tiny candle on each table. A caricature of Churchill hung over the bar. My fish and chips were battered and flavorful and the fries (British: chips) were crispy and the server brought malt vinegar and said they had comped our drinks because we'd had to wait (ten minutes) for our table. I loved the meal and the ambiance of shabby and chic.
While we were sitting, we noticed a guy of maybe 35 or so sitting by himself. He had on those linen pants that wrinkle so much and a shirt splashed with flowers and it was one of those outfits where you couldn't decide if he was wearing something elegant beyond our imagining or his pajamas.
He was by himself and, at one point, Pete said that he always felt sorry for those sitting and eating alone. This led to a conversation about how it was a bit of a trend for people, especially older-ish women, to take the plunge and eat by themselves even though it made them feel conspicuous and sad and maybe a little lonely. Or it could make them feel empowered. This guy seemed comfortable with his aloneness and I thought he probably wasn't part of a trend.
I glanced at him occasionally but hadn't given him a lot of thought---like he wasn't the highlight of our meal---until he got ready to leave.
He stopped and put his hand on my shoulder and I thought oh no he knows we were talking about him and his eating alone.
Instead, he squeezed my shoulder in a friendly way and leaned down to me because it was so hard to hear and said, "You are such a lovely couple" and I said, "Thank you so much. Forty-eight-ish years together" and he again said, "So lovely." And he patted my back and disappeared.
I've thought a bit about what he saw versus what you might call reality since then.
He would have seen two old-ish people sit down and would have seen me tell Pete to take a chair closer to me instead of across from me. He would have seen Pete scoot his chair very close to me, almost on top of me. He would probably have thought that the chair change was due to---affection or something sweet like that. He would have seen us talk. He would have seen us laugh. He might have seen Pete squeeze my leg. He would have seen us passing food back and forth as we sampled and compared our food choices.
All of what he saw was real and true. However, what he might have interpreted as us wanting to be closer during dinner was actually because Pete can't hear a bloody (English pub word) thing any longer and I knew that our meal would have been me saying something and Pete saying "what's that?" and me getting exasperated. The watching guy wouldn't have known that we were both really tired after driving to Longwood and walking for miles in 91 degree weather and that, during the day, we had been mostly kind and just a little bit snippy to each other (snippy = mainly me). He wouldn't have known that we really wanted to get our food and go back to the hotel because we were so tired. He wouldn't have known that some of the conversations he viewed from afar were trivial and not scintillating or worth noting by him.
Still. He had watched two old-ish people living a life. He wouldn't have known, as he watched Pete squeeze my leg, that I almost always have a bruise the size of a man's thumb on my leg because Pete gets the most comfort from squeezing my leg throughout the day.
He had watched, I now realize after some thought, a vignette of marriage and love and I guess we were, actually, a lovely couple.
(Picture of us definitely not at an English pub in PA.)
Memorial Day 2026
We were at my parents’ house and Mother asked if my brother and I wanted our beat up green footlockers and I said sure but didn’t Dad want them and Dad said why would I want them they’re not mine. And I said what do you mean they’re not yours? Didn’t you bring them home from the navy? And Dad said haven’t you heard of the colors ARMY green and NAVY blue and I said oh, well then whose footlockers are they? And then I said oh no they’re the army man’s who lived next door? The guy who died in Vietnam? And I said Jesus I wrote my name on it. Why did you let me write my name on it? And why did you let me use it as a toy box?
And Dad said the soldier wouldn’t have minded that you wrote your name on it. He had little boys and he liked you with your little girl pink-ness and strollers filled with dolls. He was always glad to see you when you came out to play. It’s ok. And Dad said those footlockers were hardly in Vietnam before they came back home and I said what do you mean he’d been there for years and Dad said no he’d only been there for two weeks.
And I said well I just got this story so wrong. I thought the footlockers were Dad’s and I thought the army man had been there for years and I thought he was a captain or a Green Beret or someone important. And Dad said no he was just a kid. And he was killed so early into the war that it was noteworthy. I remember all of us neighbors talking about him. You know---one dead out of a thousand was something; one dead out of 58,000 was just a number.
And somehow this makes it all worse. It’s been decades since that army man died and I was just a little girl and it’s OK that I got his story so wrong. But it doesn’t feel OK. It seems as if I should have gotten his last story right and known that he was younger than my youngest is now. I should have known that he wasn’t a battle-weary and war-scarred veteran.
I should have known that he’d just gotten to that jungle across the world. The footlocker had barely arrived in Vietnam before it was sent back home again. Still today I can read the number 131091 so clearly written in black marker. I look at the date written and realize that this footlocker had served in the 1940s and again in the 1960s. The footlocker had a longer life than my friend the army man next door.
And I thought did the footlocker come home next to his body or did they just load up a bunch of them? Did they have a plane just for bodies and another one for footlockers? Or had we not yet gotten that good at the logistics of returning dead boys and their boots and bibles?
And I said I got most of this story wrong but I know that his wife came over all the time didn’t she? And my mom said yes she came over because she was young with two little boys who liked to play army. She had no family around and so she got the boys bathed and tucked into bed and then she’d knock at our door late at night. We’d drink coffee and talk about the boy who was sitting around a campfire when a sniper shot him in the head.
And I know that I got so much of his story wrong and I feel desperately awful that I wrote my name on the footlocker that belonged to someone else’s dad and not mine and I wish I could give the locker back to his kids whoever and wherever they are. But the main part, the part about a dead soldier and suddenly fatherless kids and a widow and her grief---I got that part right. Perfectly.
Amsterdam 2026 Post #2
Two guys from KC opened Pendergast in Amsterdam. It’s named after the political mob boss who ran KC in the 1920-1930s. Pendergast helped Harry S Truman’s political career and that cloud always hung over Truman. Pendergast was very corrupt and shootings and beatings routinely happened on election days. His office in the West Bottoms led to, in part, the rise of KC Jazz. We told the servers that we were from Kansas City and they said that they hoped the food lived up to KC standards. The brisket was great. The sides were weird with flavors that were either just odd or adapted to Dutch tastes. NO FRIES and fancy mashed potatoes instead which is a very odd choice because KC BBQ joints always serve fries. They had gooey butter cake which is a St. Louis and not KC thing. (Pete’s dad was a connoisseur of gooey butter cake and bought one on Saturday mornings.)
The food was very hit or miss all week. We ordered schnitzel in one place because now we always order schnitzel in remembrance of John and Ian's wedding in Vienna where they, obviously, served schnitzel. It was a terrible meal. The meat was clearly processed like a fish stick and was disgusting. They had “lonely elderly women” in the neighborhood make a soup each week to help them be happy and busy which is a very nice gesture. I still think, however, that, gesture or not, the food should be edible. I ordered the cauliflower soup and it was thick tasteless glue. The brown, green, mustard thing was a tuna sandwich at the tulip gardens. It was awful but the Belgian fries at the gardens were spectacular. In 2015, we had the fish & chips at a market that has been operating in Amsterdam for hundreds of years and went back to the same market. Best fish & chips anywhere! Without a doubt! We had a lovely meal in Haarlem at a place called TOAST. (I found it interesting that a lot of restaurants and shops use English instead of Dutch for their names.)
Amsterdam 2015
On our first day in Amsterdam, it was nearing sunset and we found ourselves near the Anne Frank House and there was such a short line that we decided to take advantage and go in. I wrote this after the visit:
It’s probably because of the newsreels. In the reels, Anne’s street was black and white, stark, and it always seemed as if it had just rained. I knew about the tree, just recently gone, whose topmost branches she could see when she was allowed a glimpse outside. I had no idea there was a canal. It’s a handsome street. The building holding her attic looks like a very nice office from the outside. It is green leaves and blue sky and water flowing in the canals. It doesn’t seem to be a street where evil dropped in.
I was surprised at how large the annex was. Of course, it was small and cramped and the stairs were those typical Dutch stairs that seem more like ladders than stairs. But there was a bathroom and a fairly large kitchen. I was especially struck by the fact that it had wallpaper unique to that time period. Flowery. Fussy. A paper that a grandmother would like. Those things that Anne had pinned to the wall, like any teen girl, were preserved behind glass. I realized that the reason the annex was larger than I’d expected was because I’d only ever seen what I thought of as “The Annex” in school plays. I guess I had pictured Anne living on floors made of scaffolding with the front open to the audience. I guess I hadn’t really pictured, you know, walls and real stairs and running water. I’d pictured Anne on a set.
I looked at her photos and thought about both her and my mom who were very near the same age. Clearly, Anne and her family were well-to-do in a modest way. She had professional portraits that looked posed and paid for. She had lovely clothes. One grouping showed her in a beautiful dress. Another showed what looked like a sweater set. I thought about Anne’s life in the thriving city of Amsterdam. I thought about my mother in a small rural town in Kansas. I thought about life and accidents of birth. Anne seemed to “come from money” as my mom’s mother would have said. My mother came from nothing. One of them is still alive today.
I had expected the visit to the Anne Frank Huis would be sad but it wasn’t as oppressive as I'd expected. The rooms were tiny. The ladders to get to them were steep. The furniture was gone. The movie star pin-ups were still hanging behind preserving glass. Blackout curtains hung at each window. I thought about Anne and my mother Mary but called Carolyn. I thought about never breathing the outside air.
After touring the house, a middle-aged couple came up to us. It was tough for me to tell—were they Dutch? German? I had no idea. “Did you just tour?” they asked us. “Her story has touched us so. Was it awful?” No, I said, it wasn’t as sad as I’d expected. The rooms were so tiny. The room Anne shared with the man, maybe he was a dentist, was just the size of a larger closet. “Oh,” the woman said. “Yes, they did that during the war? They all just pitched together and shared their houses didn’t they? That’s just so inspiring.”
I just stared at her. Anne Frank—that’s what you think her story was? She and her parents’ friends got together and shared a home? Like an Airbnb or a hostel?
Amsterdam 2026 Post #1
We didn’t go to the most famous attic this time. When we were there in 2015 (before the tourist invasion), we just walked by near sunset and went in with no lines. Now you have to buy tickets six weeks ahead at 10 am Amsterdam time. We talked to a couple from Utah who had gotten up at 2 am in Phoenix to buy them. I read about a woman who had gotten up early and bought tickets and realized when she got to Amsterdam that she had bought tickets to the replica exhibit in New York City. She was devastated. It’s not like they can renovate the attic to add space so the crowds won’t become easier to manage. After learning how difficult it is to get tickets to see Anne’s attic, I decided not to take two spaces away from those who hadn’t yet seen it.
Anne Frank’s House is the most visited site in Amsterdam. We visited another attic that is the fifth most visited site which was the “Our Lord in the Attic” museum. When the Spanish Catholic rulers were kicked out of the Netherlands and Protestant rulers took over, the Catholics were allowed to practice their faith as long as they kept the worship out of sight. Wealthy families built neighborhood churches in their attics where they worshiped undisturbed. The builder of this church was a cotton/linen merchant. If you look at the top of the building’s facade, you can see the hooks that were used to pull the linen to the attic for storage. The building was tall and thin and had five or six floors. This is the only remaining attic church in Amsterdam.
The #1 and #5 top tourist attractions in Amsterdam are in attics which seems like a very odd juxtaposition of history.
Things we saw at the museum:
Dutch Doors
Those ladder-like stairs that are everywhere
Beds that people slept in while sitting up
Very old Delft tiles on a kitchen wall
Most of the restaurants in NYC bring a postcard with your bill. For years, John has sent me the postcards with "We'll go sometime" or "Can't wait to eat here with you guys” scribbled on them.
Obviously these little notes from John were aspirational and not true. Obviously we were not going to visit and actually eat at any of these places. Obviously because----they lived in New York and we lived in Kansas.
Now.
John sends us a postcard about where we can eat and then—-we eat there.
Lately all we’ve done it seems is haul boxes and commute:
Latest Trip: Met up with just John and Cait in Manhattan. As we were sitting in Empire Diner, I said, "We were sitting at the table next to this one when we came for Christmas years ago. And now here we are again but we came by Metro North and not a plane."
Cait said, "I remember that because, a few days after eating at that exact table, John and I began talking about how we were going to get you guys to move here. We talked off and on and then covid hit and that changed everything. That's when we called and started the pressure campaign.”
Oh. Also on this visit: A man attacked three people with a machete at the 4 5 6 stop in Grand Central about 45 minutes before our train arrived. Early the next morning, the building that John used to live two doors down from and now was just a few blocks away from, burned to the ground. We seemed to be escaping tragedies.
Trip 1: John and Ian sold their place in Brooklyn Heights with its views of the Statue of Liberty and the East River. With the sale, we had to accept that we were never going to see Matt D and Emily B and husband John K gathered on Matt’s rooftop in front of John's place. We were never going to again visit what had become our pied-a-terre and see lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge lit up at night because they both wanted to be back in Manhattan.
Cait filled our SUV with things that needed to go from our place to hers in Brooklyn. John and Ian then filled the now-empty SUV with things to go from their sold house to our house. I told all of them that their plan to get us to NYC had mainly been to have us schlepp things for them. Our presence was just a (tiny) bonus.
Trip 2: Cait came to visit us soon after. She brought Lizzie who is getting used to being on trains and once a plane. She still doesn't really know us and is a very timid and shy girl---it makes our hearts hurt knowing that her fear of people is because she was caged for three years in order to produce puppies at a puppy mill in----Missouri.
Trip 3: Cait called a few weeks after her visit and said that she had a business meeting in Goshen. She thought that we should drive down from Beacon and meet her at the train in Peekskill. She asked for Spindrift in a cooler and her dad added a beer just in case. We went across the lovely Bear Mountain Bridge which was the bridge that we saw on our second day here when John and Ian came to show us the house we had bought but had never seen. Now we cross it often and sometimes pick up a daughter because she said, "Come meet me.” We had German food in Goshen at a delightful place filled with what were obviously locals who ate there regularly. Maybe we'll meet Cait, cross the bridge, and eat there again just because---we can.
Trip 4: A week later, we took the train to Grand Central to meet John, Ian, Cait, and Meg on a field trip (I used to number them Field Trip # whatever but I've lost count) to Neue Galerie, a gallery of Austrian art. This was my pick and also John and Ian's. Because of their love for Vienna and their wedding in Vienna, anything Austrian has a special place in their hearts.
When John and Ian got married at the Belvedere Palace, "The Kiss" by Klimt was hanging just outside the room where they were married. Now, at the gallery, we saw Klimt’s “Woman in Gold” which I had learned about from the movie with Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds that told the story of the Nazi theft and the Jewish family’s attempt to reclaim their painting.
(The gallery wouldn't let you take pictures so all I got was a stupid postcard of "Woman in Gold." Cait, the photographer, said, "You don't really need a photo. You can always look it up online." Note: She is the photographer!!!)
We all noted that Austrian/German food has been popping up an odd amount of times: First at John and Ian’s wedding in Vienna. Then in Goshen and now in NYC at an Austrian gallery.
One more thing about our trip last week. When we got off the train, we saw several people dressed in kilts carrying various band instruments. I later read that the Scottish Heritage Parade had taken place that day.
Here’s the thing: Sam Heughan aka James Alexander Malcom Mackenzie Fraser aka Jamie had been the Grand Marshall or something important at the parade.
Jamie, about whom I have been reading since 1993, was at the friggin' parade and I did not know! I was crushed and angry and will remain so—-I’ve read the first three Outlander books at least three or four times each and all nine books have center stage on my bookshelves.
Jamie was at the parade. And I was not.
America begins its return to the moon. Here's my story that I wrote several years ago of that day in 1969 when we landed.
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"We choose to go to the moon—and do these other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard."
President John Kennedy
Forty-five years ago today was a day of firsts. For the first time, my family went to Pomme de Terre Lake, I rode a mini bike, crashed it and shredded my knee, and I took my first ride on a pontoon boat.
And, also for the first time, I saw a man step onto the moon. Because my knee was shredded, I couldn’t get into the lake that day. I spent it on a pontoon boat with the adults. Between sips of beer and dips in the water, they talked about what was going to happen that night. I think, if asked, they would have said they were confident that it was going to work. I think, if asked to actually lay down a bet, they would have put the percentages at 75% fail 25% succeed. All day, we looked to the sky and wondered where were they? Were they close? How close? Would they crash? Would they get there and not be able to get back to their ship? Would there be an unexpected bacteria that killed them all? What we felt was a mixture of a child’s excitement before Christmas and the dread before a root canal. You’d think of it and feel a thrill in your chest—butterflies and a sinking feeling both at the same time.
We almost missed it as we headed home from the lake. It was late. We were on a dark empty road paved with gravel that we had driven on for miles without seeing a house, a light, or another car. We were listening to a radio station that crackled and faded in and out as signals were found and lost and found again. As it became clear that the astronauts were about to step out of the lunar module, the pressure on my dad mounted to FIND SOMEPLACE WITH A TV NOW. At that point, I think we would have stopped at any house we saw and asked to come in and watch their TV with them.
With only minutes to go, we saw the lighted sign of a gas station in the true middle of nowhere Missouri. We pulled off near the pumps and our tires made that ding ding sound that cars always triggered at gas stations back then. We went into the station and found an older man sitting in the dark with only the black and white of his tiny television flickering in the dust and the stagnant air that smelled of rubber tires and motor oil. He was sitting in the only chair and so we, my mom and dad and brother and I, sat down on the cold dirty floor. And there, surrounded by the mechanics of autos, we watched a man step down onto the moon.
The importance of this moment could not be overstated. Eight years before, at the height of the Cold War, President Kennedy had put the reputation of the United States on the line when he guaranteed that we would reach the moon before the end of the decade and before the Russians. After his death, it became a national quest to fulfill his vision. Sitting on the floor of the gas station with my family, I looked at the TV and then looked at the moon which shone so much brighter there in the emptiness of rural America and back at the TV. If you were ever going to believe in God or something larger than yourself and mankind, this was the moment.
Today, the magic has been sapped from the space program, but, back then, we lived the magic. When a rocket launched, clunky black and white TVs were wheeled into a few classrooms and all of us crowded into unfamiliar rooms and stood lined up against unfamiliar blackboards to watch. And this went on everywhere; when a launch occurred, the U.S. paused for just those few moments to acknowledge the sheer audacity and awesomeness of the dream. The same for splashdowns and they were true splashdowns as the fiery capsules splashed into the vast ocean with parachutes slowing them down. By the time the shuttle retired, I never even knew it was up there.
Somehow, the poetry of space exploration has been lost, but, for a time, the country, and indeed, the entire world, soared with the poetic magnificence of it all. And I watched a change-history moment in a dirty gas station on a dark road somewhere in Missouri.
Photo NYT Kenny Holston
March 2026
March 2017:
Earl was a big man. Tall and solid. His arms were covered with cinnamon freckles and his hair was ginger. He wasn’t fat. Just large. His shoes were long and heavy. Athletic ability didn’t come with his size. His walk was disjointed and his feet kind of struggled to catch up with his legs.
He was wicked smart. He had that sense of humor where you say something funny but wish you hadn’t because you’ve just offended someone again. He worked for my dad at King Radio and my dad had to keep Earl somewhat isolated. Like give him really involved and tiring projects that didn’t require any interaction with co-workers. Even so, others, especially women, would come to my dad to complain about something Earl had said. I suspect that now he might be diagnosed as having some level of Asperger’s.
I was in grade school when Earl first starting coming to my mother’s Sunday Dinners. I think she and my dad must have felt sorry for Earl who lived alone with few (no?) friends. We’d have roast, potatoes, and carrots or meatloaf, au gratin potatoes, and green beans. A big salad. Earl would take his place at one end of the table and talk.
I liked Earl a lot. He had a biting wit that I admired. He talked to me instead of over me. More importantly, Earl had traveled. He had suffered what people used to call a nervous breakdown more than a few times and my dad would give him time off to get himself squared away. Not necessarily because my dad was being nice, but more because, in his odd way, Earl was really good at his job. So Earl had traveled all over the United States, but more importantly, he had traveled all over Europe.
Anyway, on those nights, I’d get my shower taken and homework done early because sometimes Earl would bring his multi-media production called “European Slideshow.” He’d bring a screen that looked like a really complicated umbrella that would unfurl into a screen larger than any TV’s. He’d bring a slide projector and those Kodak Carousel slide holders. Remember them? One of my favorite episodes of "Mad Men" was when Don Draper spun that beautiful story of those slides that captured all the milestone moments that make up a life.
(I think perhaps this episode of "Mad Men" spoke to me because we never had a slide projector so we’ve never seen our own images projected large. We never had one of the millimeter cameras that caught those grainy images of kids playing in a backyard wading pool or a grandparent blowing out candles. We have not a single moving image of my parents when they were young and water skiing or sliding into second base. We don’t have my brother hitting a ball or me in drill team. We don’t have us marching in Old Settler’s. We have hours and hours and hours of John and Caitlin. i can’t imagine what that would be like. To, at 50 or 60, get out DVDs and watch yourself—so young and vital. And hear the voices. That’s what I would like—the sound of me and my family laughing.)
Anyway, Earl would slide that first carousel into his machine and would start taking us through Europe. Paris. Florence. Munich. Berlin, East and West. Venice. London. And, most magnificently, Rome. I would lie on the floor with my head propped on a pillow and listen to that ratcheting sound as the carousel slowly rotated itself slide by slide until it arrived back at the beginning. When he’d finish one carousel, we’d get refills of Pepsi and popcorn and he’d load another carousel. We’d watch as Earl would explain the history and significance of each slide. I’ve always wanted to travel. It began with Earl.
At some point, Earl moved along with some other King Radio people to open an amplifier, something to do with guitars, company in Chanute, Kansas. We’d go visit him sometimes and eat at the same Best-Mexican-Food-In-The-World restaurant that we’d driven to with my grandparents when I was very little. Who would guess that the best tacos would be found in Chanute, Kansas?
We lost track of Earl for years. Dad said that he’d married at some point. Possibly had a child. I found this hard to fathom because I, even when it was something no one ever mentioned, was quite certain that Earl was gay.
At the beginning of the summer before Pete and I got married, he was heading to St. Louis to work concrete and I was heading home to work in the shipping department at King Radio. Before Pete and I said goodbye for most of the summer, Earl, who had unexpectedly ended up back at King Radio, invited my parents and me and Pete to his cabin on the Gasconade River. There was another man there. He seemed to be right at home which kind of confirmed my previous sense about Earl. Earl and his friend cooked steaks for us. It took them hours to get the fire going and the meat cooked. Even after all this time and all this effort, the potatoes were still raw and the steak was bleeding all over my plate. Pete likes meat to be raw but my parents and I just pushed the food around pretending to have eaten it.
The next morning, I woke early and went looking for Pete. He was standing on a bridge over the river, smoking in that perfect way with his hand curved over the cigarette. He was wearing his Brod-Dugan painter’s pants. It was early and the sunlight was reflecting golden off the river. He turned and said hey hon. Later that day, Pete was in one canoe and my dad and I were in another. My dad did not know how to canoe. I did not know how to canoe. We had no life jackets. We flipped the canoe and were being swept along in an exceedingly strong current. My dad grabbed hold of me as I knew my dad would. We were fine except for the snakes. Have you ever seen "Lonesome Dove?" The part where the new cowboy is crossing the river and is smothered by writhing snakes? That was us in the river. It’s been several decades and the memory still makes my skin crawl.
We were driving to downtown KC the other evening and passed Georgetown Apartments where Earl had lived. They are red brick and sit high above the interstate. They are built in the Georgian style with black shutters and those pretend hinges that people put on windows and shutters to make it look like they open and close. Back when I was a little girl, the Georgetown Apartments were like the ultimate in luxury. To have arrived meant to live in Georgetown. And, even better than the actual apartments, was the idea that Georgetown had a recreational center. And by that, I mean that it had an indoor pool when no place except a hotel had an indoor pool. With a really fancy changing room for the women. The room had gilt-edged mirrors and a long vanity with those scrolled-wire chairs with quilted poufy pink velvet seats. It had those built-in places that Kleenex popped up out of. It had fancy towels and soft lighting. The pool wasn’t large but it was curvy and heated and the lighting in the pool area could be dimmed. I asked my mom and dad if they thought Earl would let me have a January birthday swim party there. They said they didn’t know, but that, if I wanted a party, I would have to ask Earl myself. I called him and asked if I could possibly have 8-10 friends come there to swim. He said that nothing would make him happier than to have my party there. He arranged the details with the management of Georgetown. He had a cake delivered and ice cream and pretty plates and shiny silverware. It was the fanciest party I ever had.
Earl, a large awkward man with few social graces, gave me a birthday party. He gave me uncooked meat. He gave me snakes in a river. And he, more than anyone, gave me the yearning to travel long before I ever thought I would actually get to travel.
As we passed Georgetown the other night, all this flickered through my mind. Thank you Earl.
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This popped up in my memories. One other thing I remember about Earl is that, when he worked at this guitar amplifier or some odd thing company in Chanute, they sold really nice guitars. My dad, for some inexplicable reason, thought that my mother would like to take guitar lessons and bought a guitar for her. She made it through a few lessons and finally told my dad that guitar lessons had never really been her dream. That guitar is upstairs in Cait's bedroom here. She did take guitar lessons and can still play a few songs on that guitar. I ask sometimes if she wants to get rid of it and she always said, "Get rid of Granny's guitar?" and I realize that this guitar will be upstairs for a good long time to come.
Obviously football is my favorite sport. Somehow, though, football doesn't lend itself to writing and stories. Today is baseball's Opening Day across America. These two books are two of my absolute favorite books. They are about baseball but it's not why I love them. I love them because they are good stories.
Here are a few stories that I've written over the years about my dad and baseball. Each individual story isn't that long but there are several of them. You should read them. If you're lucky as I was, these baseball stories will remind you of your childhood and maybe your own dad.
(Photos are from the Royals World Series Parade which was one of the best days.)
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My dad’s father died from cancer one month before I was born and this is all my dad has told me about my grandfather: He had really good penmanship.
Once, he did mention that his dad had named him after Lloyd “Little Poison” Waner who was a so-so outfielder. He added that he and his dad listened to the St. Louis Browns on the radio in their front room.
So, that’s what I know about my grandfather. He wrote with a nice hand. And he apparently liked baseball.
*
During the Korean War, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was Dad’s home port and he used every shore leave for bars and baseball. During those years, he watched the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants, and the New York Yankees. He says that it was almost worth being in the Navy since it meant that he got to see Jackie Robinson, Mickie Mantle, and Willie Mays play.
After the Navy, Dad followed two teams. The Kansas City A’s and what I thought he called the Baltimore Oreos. (What can I say---I liked cookies.) I could never understand why he followed a team as far away as the Oreos until I realized that the Oreos had previously been the St. Louis Browns, the team that he and his dad had listened to on the radio when he was a kid.
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During the Ruskin Heights tornado, Dad and Mom were driving in an open area with no shelter. When my mom saw the tornado, she, being smart, got out of the car and ran for the ditch. My dad, being a baseball fan, stayed in the car because it was the Baltimore Orioles and it was the 9th inning and that was important. He made it to the ditch before the tornado passed directly over them. It touched down just after that and leveled the city.
I would bet Dad could tell me the score of the game because, God knows, it was baseball.
*
My dad would have been exactly the same age as Don Draper during the time of Mad Men and here’s the thing:
At 4:55 we’d be playing in the street with eight or ten kids. At 5:15 Mark and I would be alone because the other kids had been called inside. Fathers with their felted hats and faux leather briefcases were pulling into driveways. Tables were set with dishes bought one piece at a time from Safeway. Mothers were pulling pot roasts and meatloaves out of the oven. Kids were washing their hands and combing their hair. Dinner was served. Meals were being eaten at all the homes except for mine because my mother worked and wasn’t yet home. Dinner wasn’t served until much later at my house and it was a much simpler affair since my mom hadn’t been home to cook.
Because we ate at the unheard-of-hour of 6 or even 6:15, our meals were always interrupted by kids who had already eaten ringing our doorbell to ask, not if my brother and I could come out and play, but if my dad, Mr. Moore, could come out and play. Hardly a night went by that, tired as he might have been, Mr. Moore didn’t go out and pitch to all the kids whose dads should have been out there but weren’t.
In the beginning, it was just my brother, all the neighbor boys, and me. The other girls would sit quietly making daisy chains or dressing their Barbies in cheerleader outfits. Over time, the girls would ask if maybe they could try to swing the bat or catch a ball. My dad would say sure you can play just run home and get your glove. The girls would look at him like he’d said just run home and get your elephant. He’d tell the girls and boys to get gloves and, within a day or two, the kids would gather with never-used gloves in our backyard waiting for Mr. Moore to finish dinner.
Dad taught us all how to field and choke up on the bat and steal home. He insisted that my brother and I be able to bat right and left-handed because being able to bat right and left-handed made us more well-rounded ball players. Everyone knew that. He made sure I had a real glove and not a pink princess glove with rhinestones or sparkles.
He showed all of us how to oil our gloves and put a baseball in the middle and tie it with twine to form a good pocket. He told us to hit the glove with our fists so that the leather made that cool popping sound as we waited at-the-ready in the outfield.
Sometimes other dads came over to play---either because they wanted to play or, more likely, had been sent by their wives. They’d come over in their dress slacks and black wingtips. They’d tell their daughters that maybe they should go sit by the fence because they were going to get hurt or, sometimes, because they threw like a girl.
One dad told my father that maybe I shouldn’t be encouraged to play with a hardball. That maybe a softball was more my speed. (We had a softball. One. We called it Mom’s Softball and I have no idea why. It’s not like Mom played softball. It’s not like she had ever played softball. That’s just what it was. Mom’s Softball. I hated softballs. They were too big. Too slow. Too lumbering.)
I could tell Dad thought perhaps the other dad should go back home and read his paper. “Russ Ann,” he said. “Do you want to bat right or left-handed?” I said I thought left would be good and Dad agreed. He said, “Grab a bat and choke up.” I spit on my hands, rubbed them in the grass, choked up on the bat, and I smashed that ball. Hit it over the fence two backyards away. I stomped on home plate. The crowd went wild.
This was in the days before high fives and fist bumps. We didn’t yet know how to really celebrate so my dad just rumpled my hair and winked at me. Didn’t smile. Walked back to the pitcher’s mound. Asked who was up next. The guy never mentioned girls and baseball, hardball baseball, again. That was a good thing but here’s the real thing:
My dad, in the early 1960s, was forced to take a job that involved traveling and a hat. He loathed wearing the hat almost as much as he hated being gone.
We picked my dad up at the airport late on a Friday night and my very young brother put his arms around my dad’s neck and said, “Hey, Dad, I almost forgot about you.”
My dad found a new job that didn’t involve traveling.
Don Draper and my dad. Really no comparison.
*
Dad didn’t get real involved in our discipline but he did ground me one time. He claimed that I left my baseball glove outside overnight and a dog or a person stole it. The glove was perfect. Had a good pocket that he’d helped me oil. I’m still angry about his grounding because I’m pretty damn sure that it was my dad who left that glove out there overnight for some person or dog to steal.
*
Dad coached Mark’s teams from the time Mark was tiny until he played on school-coached teams. Their first team was a pitiful collection of six and seven year olds who showed up giddy with excitement and no discernible skills. My dad had just two rules for the kids and the parents.
Rule One: Parents were to keep their mouths shut. No yelling at the kids, the umps, or the coaches.
Rule Two: Always throw the ball home. Tired of watching a ball go from third base to an overthrown first base to an overshot second base, his strategy was simple. Let them think they hit a home run. We’ll get them out at the plate.
Twin boys played for my dad. They were named M--- and P---. They had a great deal of enthusiasm. My dad would say, “P---, you take left field. M---, you take right field.” The boys would say, “Yes, Mr. Moore” and turn for the outfield. They would make it as far as the pitcher’s mound, trip, fall, sometimes cry, and head back to my dad.
“Mr. Moore. Where’s left and right field?” they’d ask. My dad would squat down, put his arms around each boy’s shoulders, take their hands, and say Left. Right. Left. Right. The next game, Dad would send them to left and right field. They’d trip, run back and ask, “Mr. Moore. Where’s left and right field?”
Once, my dad told a boy that he was going to be catcher. The kid couldn’t have been more excited because he’d always wanted to wear an athletic cup. “Do you know how to put it on?” my dad asked him. “Oh sure,” the boy said. “I’ll be right back.” He came out of the dugout with the cup on the outside of his uniform. My dad ran over, scooped him up and held him to his chest before any of us could see him, took him into the tiny plywood hut of a bathroom, and got him squared away. He never broke into a smile but, on the way home, he really could not stop laughing.
That first team my dad coached was named The Robins. All the teams were named after birds and my dad couldn’t believe his rotten luck. The Robins? He told the boys they were the Fightin’ Robins in order to, you know, toughen up their image.
The highlight of any game actually occurred after the game. The boys never really had a clue or a care about whether they’d won or lost. They just wanted to go to Clark’s A&W after the game for drinks. They’d jump up and down at home plate and say, “Mr. Moore, are we going for drinks?” Dad would look at the ground and say, “Well, I’m not sure I have any money tonight” and he’d pull out his pockets to show that he was all tapped out. The boys would be devastated and then Dad would pull a few bills out of his socks. Mr. Moore had saved the day.
As the boys got older, Dad’s teams always had those two or three boys who showed up alone. Their moms dropped them off and left. There were no dads in the picture. Dad was hard on those boys. He knew they were in for a long haul.
Those boys, starved for attention, liked my dad. They’d trail along behind him picking up loose balls. They’d grab the heavy duffel bag full of bats and balls and gloves and half-carry half-drag it to our car. They’d ask if Mr. Moore might want to shag a few. Mr. Moore, tired as he was, would go back out and work with those fatherless boys.
They always needed rides home. We’d pull into their driveways and see a darkened house. Dad would ask if anyone were home. The boys would say, “It’s OK. Someone will be home soon.” Dad would say, “You know, I’m really hungry for a burger. I don’t suppose you would want one?” and he’d turn around and drive to Custer’s Last Stand, the only hamburger place in town, because he didn’t want to watch those boys walk into a darkened home. He’d tell the moms that they needed to pick their sons up after games and practices; they never did.
One of those boys was named S----. He was a beautiful boy. Muscular. Blue-eyed. Golden hair. A funny kid with a good attitude. A good ball player. He never really had a chance and he, not unexpectedly, became an alcoholic. Years and years later, I ran into him. He said, “I know you. You’re Something Something Moore.” “Russ Ann Moore,” I said. “How’s Mr. Moore?” he asked. “If you could, would you tell him how much he meant to me?”
S---- died soon after that. He was just 27.
*
Municipal Stadium in Kansas City was a bit of a pit. By today’s standards, it wasn’t even as nice as a decent high school stadium, but it was Kansas City’s and we loved it. The Kansas City Athletics, who would later become the Oakland A’s, played there. My mom, who hated baseball with a passion, would take a book to the game and read and smoke while those around her were yelling or cheering.
There was a mule. He was named Charlie O after the A’s owner. He wore silks just like a race horse in colors of green and gold. He was just there. On the concourse where you walked to get drinks and hot dogs and popcorn. My brother and I would stop and pet him. Charlie O didn’t care to acknowledge us. He just kept eating.
There were goats. Rather than mow or, you know, maintain the grounds above the outfield, the A’s just put goats out there. Sometimes a home run would be hit into their area and you’d see these goats glance at the ball and go back to eating grass.
There was a rabbit. He was mechanical. He was hidden underground in a space right near home plate. When a home run was hit, the rabbit would pop up to deliver a new ball to the umpire. Reggie Jackson, Mr. October himself, said that one of his fondest memories of playing in KC was that silly rabbit.
There was a catfish. Or at least a Catfish Hunter. He was our pitcher. I thought he had maybe the coolest name ever. It was a huge letdown to find out his actual name was Jim. Jim Hunter. What a disappointment.
The stadium was torn down. I think there might be a community garden there now. Maybe a commemorative sign.
*
In the late evenings, just at twilight, my dad would take the sports page and his hardly-portable transistor radio out to the backyard where he’d stretch out in one of those plastic webbed lounging lawn chairs, prop the radio between his ear and shoulder, and listen to the ball game. I’d be inside and could hear the faint sounds of the announcer’s voice and the crack of the bat. I’d feel safe because my dad was close. Baseball and my dad gave me the sense that all was right with the world.
*
George Brett was Kansas City. In the late summer of 1980, I was privileged to be at the game when he went over .400 and I’ll never forget him standing on second base tipping his hat to the crowd. It was a crazy summer when everyone in the sports world and beyond was following George in his magical quest. That he didn’t quite make it didn’t diminish the magic in any way for those of us in KC who were lucky enough to be along for the ride.
George had the most famous hemorrhoids in history as he publicly suffered with them through the World Series; he killed the ball in Yankee Stadium; he was the target (twice) of Morganna The Kissing Bandit; he was the player in the "pine tar incident" when he charged the umpire. Bumper stickers saying “George Brett for President” were printed in (Royal) blue and white. One of them was attached to the bumper of my ’69 Camaro.
when my country is causing chaos and devastation, still the earth carries on
(i did read a book called, i think, "the world without us" and it was very sure that, eventually, the world would survive all we did to it when we all have vanished from its surface...)
Reports are that we hit a school and many girls and teachers were killed or injured. Wars do actually have consequences.
caitoppermann: a little over a month ago, our first video breaking down process went up on YouTube and the response genuinely surprised me. people liked it?!
here's the second one in the series: this time it's about my commission to document the world of IBM Research. six years of work and access distilled into a publication with Actual Source.
the video is less about the book itself and more about how a project like that actually gets made and becomes something physical.
if you've been following along here, you already know a bit of the backstory. the youtube video goes much deeper. : )
still very much figuring out what this channel is, but building it has been really fun. feedback welcome, as always!
We had to get out of the house. A hike would have been nice but the trails are closed due to snow. What doesn't close due to snow?
The Met!
The Hudson River has been frozen here since mid January and we were surprised to see from the train that, as we got closer to NYC, the more you could see clumps of ice instead of a sheet of the stuff. It looked like pics of the arctic and was beautiful.
The Met tricks you. You get there and think that you're going to go see something new and yet there you are again. Meandering through the Greek statues and the Roman statues and then you're in the magnificent Egyptian Pyramid Room and then you are in the armor room with knights on horses (one of my favorite rooms at The Nelson has those knights on horses) and then you're tired and you haven't seen anything that you hadn't seen before.
This time we went straight to The American Wing. I had thought this would be small. It was not. It was room after room after room of American things painted by American artists.
We turned one corner and there was John Brown. You know that famous mural at the Kansas State Capitol? The one where John Brown looks messianic and crazy? Well, here was a smaller version painted by the same artist that, while great, was nothing compared to the size of that John Brown in Topeka. Next to this portrait was one of John Brown leaving jail for his execution where he had reportedly kissed a baby. I had not expected to see such a familiar figure in The Met.
Then! Another corner and what did I find? Washington Crossing the Delaware. (The original was in Germany and was destroyed in a bombing raid. There were two other versions and this is one of them.) It was vibrant and colorful and filled an entire wall. As usual, there was a group being led by an Asian woman. They were parked in from of the Delaware and this woman talked and talked and talked. When you thought that she might be done, she was just getting her second and third wind. I wish she had been speaking in English because I suspect that I could have learned a lot. Even those always-polite Chinese-speaking guests could not maintain interest. They were yawning and stretching, dozing and distracted. Luckily, we were not part of that group and could thankfully move on.
I'm always so happy when we turn a corner in one of the many museums and find something so unexpected.
We wandered into what I can only describe as a pantry/closet display of all those things that The Met doesn't have room to display. As we wandered among paintings and sculptures (so many of Washington and Franklin), spoons, pitchers, empty gold-embossed picture frames, grandfather clocks, and every other thing that might be considered to be art, I kept thinking of all the museums that would kill to have what The Met just displayed as ephemera with no place to be prominently displayed. It was great.
After all this, I could not take one more step. I stretched in the beautiful marketplace-feeling space in the American Wing and kind of hurt my back which is something that seems to happen in museums now.
We had asked John and Cait if they could meet us. John is usually the one who can meet up but this time it was Cait which was shocking. She is usually too busy to eat at home let alone leave her desk for a field trip. She looked so cute in her coat that she got in Paris that I would love to have but it would probably almost touch the ground on me. Plus she would never give up that coat.
We ate at the Central Park Boathouse. Cait always brings color-coded notes to discuss to any meet up with anyone whether they be family or friends. We discussed Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher's latest podcast (if you want to know about any important/popular/whatever podcast, ask Cait. She listens to them all). We talked about the Prince Formerly Known as Prince Andrew and his arrest, serial killers (the Zodiac one this time), her upcoming release of How We Shot This, her dog, where we could go on my 70th birthday. We covered a lot of ground. Whenever we meet up with John or Cait, I come home hoarse from All That Talking.
It was a good day as we escaped the snow for just a bit. And seeing Cait and her dad standing on the steps of The Met reminded me of why we moved. For that.