I sincerely hope that one day you too will write a note like the following:
“Dearest Alma,
Sometimes, in the hurried race of meeting the needs of a family, the speaking of love and appreciation is overlooked.
I value each day spent with as nothing equaled in the world. The joy of seeing the children take on your love and qualities sends my pride in my family soaring.
Should I fail to say each day – I Love You – it is not because it is unsaid or unthought. It simply was not said aloud. But it was thought and spoken in my heart.
Your husband,
Walter”
I do not know as I share this love note with you and others, what my response was at the time I received it. I don’t remember know the time frame in which he wrote it, the circumstances or struggles, what challenges, as a family and individually, we were facing. I wish I could relive my emotional response when I read it, or the conversations and thoughts evoked by the thoughts he expressed. I can only hope – not that it matters any more – that my response to him was as loving, meaningful and thoughtful as were his heartfelt comments were to me.
I never doubted his love for me personally, or his love and pride in his family. If anyone wanted to see the other side of this gregarious, smiling, charming man, just make a disparaging remark about his family whether in fun or serious.
A case in point. We had had an evening out in downtown Columbus and were standing outside the restaurant where we had enjoyed a late evening snack before returning home. A guy passing by said to his companion, “Look she doesn’t even have an evening coat.” I had to restrain Walter from physically going after them but I couldn’t quiet his voice.
Such was the man you resemble so very much and in so many ways. So maybe you too will write such a love note to your love one one day.
Written as always, written with love, Grandma Alma February 9, 2005
BOND CLOTHING STORE
Alma Garland
Dear Brent,
Back in the good old days your Grandma did not have credit cards. As a matter of fact I don’t think I knew what they were, or if they existed in the 1940’s. If they existed they were only for the very, very wealthy, not for the common folks like me making $40.00 per week, single and living in a single room. The Diner’s and American Express cards might have existed. Those we know and use today VISA, MASTER, DISCOVER, etc are creations of the sixties or maybe the fifties.
The most credit available were store accounts and they were limited to the purchase of one item or to lay-away. I had such an account at Bond Clothing Store, a middle of the price range for women’s ware, specializing in tailored women’s suits, my favorite style of all time.
At the Bond’s Store located in Jamaica , Long Island , New York during 1948-49, I would purchase – on credit – one suit, make weekly payments until I paid the bill in full. I never saw the salesman while making the payments. That is not until I had one payment to go before reaching the paid in full marker. And lo and behold, there he would be all smiles and at the top of his salesman’s game to encourage me to buy another suit, and of course, he always won.
I was so green and unknowledgeable about the ways of the retail and credit world, I thought it was somewhat magical how he just appeared. Of course, I came out of my fantasy dream world as time went on and I realize the game for what it was. I did accumulate several good quality suits and coats of which I was very proud.
A Bond’s Store existed on North High Street , somewhere between Broad and Spring, on the west side of the street in the 50’s when I moved to Columbus , Ohio . I don’t recall ever going into the store and know I never made a purchase, cash or credit. I couldn’t afford to.
Perhaps we should go back to the good old days, tear up the credit cards and live like we use to. But on the other hand, credit cards are useful if used judiciously, as you have found out or will find out.
Incidentally, your Granddad expressed dislike for everything I had purchased and brought into the marriage. I realized many, many years later, this is a method of exercising control. Please don’t use it.
Love as always, Grandma Alma
Written July 20, 2007
Life Can Be a Gamble or a Gambol
Saundra Akers
Emma sat in the shuttle heading for the Indian run casino at St. Ignace. She had never been in an Indian run casino and she wondered how it might differ from other casinos. She had been in two or three other casinos but she really wasn’t a gambler. Usually she became bored early and left. Tonight she would have to stay until the shuttle left. She hoped the evening wouldn’t be too dreary.
As a rule, when going into a casino she set a limit of twenty dollars and would not play after losing that. This is one reason she soon became bored because it doesn’t take long to lose twenty dollars in a casino.
She shook her curly grey head which still had moisture in it from the shower. She was on a trip with other seniors who had come to Mackinaw Island and the surrounding area on a four day tour. Prior to the trip, she had not met any of the other people. They were very nice and friendly, however.
Thinking that the evening was going to drag by with nothing to do, she had signed up to take the shuttle to the casino. She thought that would be better than staying alone in her room watching TV.
Emma watched as the bus pulled into the casino parking lot and the other people got out. When it was her turn she got out and walked into the casino which looked to her like every other casino she had been in. The Indians hadn’t done anything innovative that she could see.
Usually she played only the quarter slots when in a casino. The first thing she noticed in this casino was that they also had nickel slots. “Well, that’s good,” she thought. “I can play five times as long on the same amount of money.”
At first she walked around getting the lay of the land. Then she settled down to play the nickel slots. She won some then lost some but as usual, she eventually lost five dollars, whereupon she went to a quarter slot machine and lost another five dollars. In time she had lost the twenty dollars she allowed herself to lose and felt she would need to stop playing. She looked at the clock. It was only ten o’clock. The shuttle wouldn’t leave until eleven thirty.
Emma got up and walked around the casino again and then walked outside. It was dark and she didn’t venture very far from the door. In a few minutes she went back inside the casino.
She spent some time in the casino gift shop finding gifts for a few friends back home. She noted that she still had forty five minutes to kill.
Finally she located a bar where she could get a diet coke and play a game built into the bar at the same time. She climbed up on the stool which was high for her five foot one frame. After ordering and receiving her coke, she sat staring at the game in front of her.
“ Oh well, might as well risk another five dollars,” she decided. She put her money in the quarter slot machine and started the game.
On her left a young man sat playing a similar game. She glanced at him when his machine suddenly started to spill forth an avalanche of coins. She saw that he was probably in his twenties with what she considered the typical dress for his age group of T-shirt and jeans. She watched him push his hands through his curly brown hair before he scooped up all the coins and placed them in his bucket.
Looking back at her machine she concentrated on putting another coin into her machine. As before, it yielded nothing.
A few minutes later, she heard the machine on her left explode in coins again. The young man scooped these up into his bucket which was getting quite full by now.
Emma felt a little envious and wondered why she wasn’t lucky enough to be sitting at a machine that paid good dividends. She eyed the man again and pushed another coin into the machine in front of her.
As she did so she noticed the man beside her getting up and leaving the machine beside her. She glanced at his strong chin and bright eyes as he faced her way for a second, then turned and moved away through the crowd.
Now his machine was vacant and all she had to do was to move over into his place. However, she didn’t do that. She considered that the machine to her left had already paid twice in the last half hour. Her machine had not paid at all. Surely the machine she was currently on was due to pay soon. She was afraid the other machine had paid all it was going to pay for a while.
Doggedly she played on as she watched the clock tick along slowly and her money dwindle not so slowly. After about fifteen minutes she had lost all her money and was finishing up her coke preparatory to leaving.
Suddenly a hand shot in front of her and deposited a full bucket of coins onto the table. Startled, she looked up to see the man who had been sitting beside her earlier.
“Merry Christmas,” the man said, then turned hastily and rushed away into the crowd.
Emma looked after him as he started to disappear. At the last moment, he turned and waved to her smiling gaily and then he was gone.
Emma examined the bucket of coins. They appeared to be legitimate. “Why had the stranger given this money to her and what was that quip about Christmas. It was August for goodness sake!”
Thinking this was some kind of joke, Emma sat at the table for another ten minutes expecting the man to return and claim his money. He didn’t do that.
Finally she took the coins and cashed them in. The total was eighty five dollars and fifty cents. Emma could actually feel the curtain of depression lift from her shoulders. She had come here in a dogged effort to have a good time and to not miss anything. She had been trying so hard to have a good time that she had failed to relax and let her self enjoy her activities.
Now the kindness of a total stranger had opened her heart, not because he had given her money she needed, although she certainly could use the money. No, it was something else. She tried to put it into perspective. He had noticed her. As alone as she had thought she was, someone had noticed her and responded to her. She had counted for something to him, although she had no notion why.
She wondered why he had given the money to her out of all the people in the casino. She questioned why he had given away his money at all. Could it have been because he was running late and didn’t have time to cash it in? Was he independently wealthy and only gambling for the fun of it? Maybe she reminded him of his mother. She’d never know.
No matter what the reason, she had been chosen out of all the people in the casino to be the recipient of his bounty and that made her feel very special. Her g-a-m-b-l-e had taken a turn and now it seemed like a playful g-a-m-b-o-l, a frisky frolic, a rollicking lark.
Emma smiled as she hummed Jingle Bells and other Christmas songs all the way back to the motel.
CHRISTMAS
Virginia Mereness KIng
Christmas sights, Christmas smells,
Christmas bells
that fill the air so clear,
Bring back memories of
days gone by,
Times we held so dear.
But past is past,
and now we face the present,
with hopes and fears of old.
With One thing certain
in our future,
Christ is manifold
Now a Christmas Haiku (?)
Christmas bells, loud, clear.
Christmas angels watching near.
Jesus Christ is here.
The Button
Its History - Influence and Power!
Alma Garland
Did you play the childhood game “Button, button who has the button?” Has someone “pushed your last button lately?” Or, as I was asked as a young bride, do you have a button box?
The power of the button shimmers as they entertain us in these musical excerpts from the Jamaican song, “Push de Button” sang by Lena Horne in the 1957 Broadway musical, “ Jamaica ” written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg.
“Up de elevator,
Push de button,
Out de orange juice.
Push de button,
From refrigerator …
Push de button,
Out come Pagliacci,
Push de button
Also Liberace.
Push de button?...
Crack de bank, rob de mail.
Turn de knob and get Muzak in Jail….
The button’s influence and power on mankind began eons ago before the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Excavations in the ancient Indus Valley , which included the area of present day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, have uncovered intricately carved terra cotta buttons, circa 2800-2600 BC. The buttons appeared to have been used as ornaments rather than fasteners. The buttonhole was introduced in 13th century Europe by Crusaders who were returning from battles in the Middle East . The button and its buttonhole influenced the rise of snug-fitting coats and vests which now could be overlapped and closed. Women were freed from their garments’ hooks and laces.
It wasn’t until the 18th century that decoration and functionality combined and began a craze in women’s clothing. But only for the rich and powerful.
Various types of buttons were invented to meet the demands of fashion. Leather garments brought about the need for shank buttons which have a small ring in the back through which the thread is sewn to attach the button. The influence of buttons reached across the European continent to Asia . Mandarin buttons, called Frogs, are knobs made of intricately knotted strings closed with loops. Worn as cuff links Mandarin buttons are called silk knobs. Even the working class felt the influence. Flat or sew-through buttons are buttons with two or four holes through which the thread is sewn by machine or hand. Fashion dictated the invention of cloth buttons created by embroidering or crocheting tight stitches over a knob.
Buttons are so unique they have their own measurement language called lignes, (lines) and abbreviated “L.” Four lignes equals one inch.
The shape of buttons and materials they were made from has evolved. From ancient times to the present, buttons have been made in a variety of shapes – round, flat, raised, oblong, oval and square.
In the 18th and 19th centuries metal buttons were made from pewter, brass, ivory, and silver each a more expensive and prized material. The first plastic buttons were of fragile celluloid and sold in the 1897 Sears & Roebuck catalog. Many other outlets soon caught the “fire” to sell this new product. Natural buttons made of wood, horn (from hooves and horns of cattle), vegetable ivory (carved from corozo nuts of the tague palm), hard rubber, mother-of-pearl (made from the pearly lining of freshwater mollusca shells), made their debut in the 1800’s. Plastic buttons of Bakelite (1940-1950) and Lucite (mid-1930’s) buttons were colorful and stylish.
The use of glass in the button’s history tells another chapter beginning with the quite rare, Passemeterie glass button. The Passemeterie button, named for an 18th century design of fabric button, were faceted pieces of black glass soldered or riveted to a metal back to form an open work design. Jet is a rare, light weight, warm to the touch, highly fragile mineral mined in Whitby , England . “Jet” and black glass buttons were worn as mourning jewelry by England ’s Queen Victoria after the death of Prince Albert in 1863. The wonderfully unique “Luster Finish” buttons’ look was achieved by the application of a luster metallic sheen applied to black glass.
Calico glass buttons have an international history. They are Chinese buttons painted with the designs of the calico fabric made by the Calcutta Indian Company about 1840. Nineteenth century molded glass buttons were molded clear with fancy paint or transfer designs added to the back. In the 20th century, moonglow glass buttons made their appearance and have opaque bases which give the illusion of swirl or eye in the center. Is it any wonder button collectors will beg, bargain, trade, and cause the button on your garment “to just disappear” to add to their collection?
The power and influence of the button in our present day lives is immeasurable. No longer is their use limited to being the silent closures of our clothing. Like their ancestors, our present day buttons come in a variety of shapes and colors including round, oblong, oval, square, flat, raised, red, blue, yellow and green. Some are silent and some are not. Some have names printed nearby. Some may have only one function while others have multiple uses.
The industrial age moved buttons from just being used on our clothing to many other usages. Buttons on your telephone are likely to be raised, move up and down and are identified with the alphabet, numbers words and symbols. The buttons on your microwave are numbered, flat, make a sound when pushed and offer you a variety of choices allowing you to choose cook, defrost, reheat, select a level of power and set time limits.
What would we do without our TV, stereo, DVD, adjustable bed remotes with buttons in a variety of colors, sizes, shapes, arrows pointing in all four directions performing multiple functions? The on and off button has evolved and has been renamed “power”. In the Twenty-first century, it simply displays a lighted incomplete circle with a vertical bar.
Buttons are obstinate little creatures and will only perform the command they were programmed for. No matter how hard, or many times you press the TV remote control button, it will not raise or lower the bed, or vice versa. And talk about power! Nothing moves you faster than when the security system sends a fire alarm to the control headquarters, although you only meant to set the alarm for away.
Conventional wisdom and game makers says the multiple buttons on hand held game play stations teach and improve eye and hand coordination.
Buttons are really powerful. They regulate the heating and cooling of our homes. Maneuvering through the maze of buttons and their functions on the thermostat control panel is a 101 course in “home electronics” as we program the on and off periods of operation for the equipment, high and low temperatures and for specific days of the week by pushing just the right buttons.
The greatest compilation of buttons is on the computer and all of its peripheral components. Twenty-four/seven you can safely walk through a room using only the illumination from the continuously burning green lit buttons. We communicate with our families, neighbors and friends within our homes and around the world by pushing the multitude of buttons on our computers. Texting on our cell phones is another whole era.
The buttons on our electric alarm clocks regulate our sleeping and waking hours when they are put to work.
The legality and safety of crossing a street is accomplished by pressing the designated button with the message: “Press Button to Cross…”.
We punch, press, touch, buttons - some from memory or habit - some with instruction book in hand, to perform many of our daily tasks, from setting the coffee maker the night before for fresh brewed coffee in the morning, protecting our dwelling by “setting the alarm for away”, to conducting our personal, social and business affairs on the computer and to many activities in between.
The button that gives me the most satisfaction is the garage door opener button. I feel as though I have arrived into the 21st century when I push the oblong button on my key ring and the door obediently rises. I enter and exit, push the button again and the door willingly closes.
We are all under the influence of those little silent, or buzzing, red, green, amber, yellow or blue; blinking or steady lit buttons. We press and expect our slightest command to be performed instantly.
We push or press buttons and they perform their functions, exercise their power to protect, inform, entertain, decorate and facilitate the countless facets of our everyday lives, and we still use the many varieties and styles of buttons to held our garments together..
You don’t have to ask who has the button, or has someone pushed your last button, or have you lost your buttons for all you have to do is -
”Push –
Apply de little finger
And push de button!
Jenny Hummingbird, Spy Courier
Saundra Akers
I was stopped at a streetlight when the crazy old woman forced her way into my car. She had a gun in a hand that shook with nerves, or palsy, or both, and I was afraid the gun would go off even if she didn’t want it to. The gun was small, maybe a twenty-two, but it was surely big enough to leave a big hole in me. I felt myself going mushy with fear.
My name is Jenny Hummingbird and I’m a courier of state secrets, part time. I think it’s only when they need an unlikely person to run an especially difficult trip for them that I get called. I’m not particularly good at my job but it helps buy ice cream. I love ice cream!
My job at the moment was to deliver a small canister of microfilm to a man in a western state near the border with Canada. I’d decided to drive instead of fly and so here I was in Kansas sitting in my car with a deranged old black lady, old enough to have been my grandmother, trying to look innocent.
“Gimme the film and ye won’t get hurt,” she advised me, sounding like a John Wayne movie to my untrained ears.
“What film are you talking about? I’m on my vacation here. Who are you and what are you doing,” I asked hoping to bluff my way out of this situation.
“I know who you are. You’re the bird woman…bluebird or something like that. Well I’m the blackbird what’s gonna pick your eyes out, if I don’t get that film, pronto like.”
I squinted at the wrinkled face in front of me. The woman had to be eighty years old to have that many lines in her face, didn’t she? I was only thirty one so I thought maybe I could take her, excepting for that gun in her hand, of course.
“What’s with the John Wayne attitude,” I asked, hoping to distract her.
“Now that was a man,” she sighed and I could see the far away look in her eyes as she transported herself to John Wayne territory. “John Wayne would have shot you already for all these questions,” she added her eyes brightening at the prospect.
“I think you’ve got the wrong woman,” I told her. “I’m Jenny Hummingbird and I’m on my vacation. I’m heading out to California to get a little sun and surf, you know what I mean?”
“Oh yeah, right and what’s in that suitcase on the back seat?”
“Check it out if you don’t believe me. It’s just my clothes and things like that along with some snacks to keep me from starving.”
Holding the gun in her right hand she pulled the suitcase forward and opened it up. Two boxes of Baby Ruth candy bars fell out. She took a box of the candy and heaved it into the back seat, then sent the other one flying after it.
“Hey,” I objected.
She shushed me with the gun, “That stuffs pisen and it’s gonna rot your teeth. I know these things. She flashed a toothless grin at me and suddenly the Baby Ruths didn’t seem so harmless anymore.
After she’d pulled everything out of the suitcase and tossed it to the back with out finding what she wanted, she started waving the gun, indicating for me to drive. I started to move cautiously. I had preferred to stay where I was, since there was at least a chance someone might see us there, but she seemed determined to get me out to some isolated spot where she could play John Wayne, using me for target practice.
“Where’d you want me to go,” I asked.
“Somewhere we can stop and search this car from end to end; if I don’t get what I want, they’ll be using you for a sponge by tomorrow. It would be best that you tell me where it is before I gets mad!”
I thought she was already raving mad but I didn’t say so. I drove down the street slowly trying to find a place to pull over within city limits, somewhere she wouldn’t want to drill me full of holes as she’d suggested she’d do. There was a small park on my right and without asking her, I pulled into a slot at the side of that space and looked at her.
“Get out of the car,” she said waving the gun like a flag at a race track.
I got out and watched her as she checked the glove compartment of the car, jerking everything out onto the floor, opening up the camera case and looking inside it then tossing it onto the heap.
“Be careful with my camera,” I yelled.
She waved the gun and a bullet hit the dirt beside my right foot surprising us both. She looked at the gun as if it had sprouted two barrels and then at me.
“Better keep your mouth shut,” she advised.
I thought that might be good advice so I stood silent as she looked under the seat, into the side pockets of the door and then waving me back, started on the other side. That finished, she went to the back seat where she checked through the mess she’d made of the contents of my suitcase, examined the suitcase itself for hidden pockets and finally came forward.
“Open the boot,” she demanded.
Not being up on my western vernacular, apparently, I didn’t know what she meant.
“The boot, the trunk, whatever! The back end of the car,” she shouted impatiently waving that gun again.
“Ok, ok,” I said, pushing the lever to open it for her.
She spent a while looking inside, made me take out the spare tire which she checked carefully and then, stumped, she let me put everything away.
“Now I’m gonna check you,” she said. “Turn around.”
I did as she asked and she patted me down as if she’d had patting lessons. All she found was the stick of gum I’d lost down my shirt earlier that day. Apparently she wasn’t sure what to do next so she made me go over to a table nearby. I sat on the bench while she paced in front of me like a little black cowboy in spandex pants. It came to me that I might be an unlikely courier for Uncle Sam but she was my enemy counterpart. Finally the two of us had collided.
“Look at all those pears,” she said suddenly. “All that food going to waste, there otta be a law! Go and get some bags out of your car. We’re gonna save that glorious fruit and feed the hungry.”
Completely disoriented by this shift in subject, I looked at the pear tree she was pointing at. It was so full of fruit that some of the limbs were breaking with its effort to hold them. I went to the car followed closely by the gun and got the bags as requested.
“Now get to work picking up that fruit,” the old woman said, her lips moist with the thought of the succulent pears. She bent and picked one, took a huge mouthful and closed her eyes in dreamy delight.
Now might be the time, I thought as I picked up the pears and held several in my hands wondering if I could fire them at her accurately enough to dislodge the gun from her hand. I wasn’t very good at baseball, I reminded myself and let the opportunity pass. Seeing that she was watching me again, I put the handful of fruit into the bag.
“You be sure to take this fruit to all those orphans at the Children’s Home,” she said.
“Kids like fruit.”
Now I was sure I was dealing with a mad woman, but she was a mad woman with a gun, so I filled the bag and put it in the trunk of my car. Taking a second bag, I started filling that one as well. After three bags were filled, I was out of bags. As I started to put the last bag into the trunk of the car, I acted on impulse whirling around and hitting the woman dead in the center of her forehead with the bag of hard fruit. She fell on her back and the gun fired wildly into the tree causing a branch to fall on top of her.
Seeing that the old woman was only stunned, I ran to the car, jumped in and started it up. I roared out of the park leaving my fallen nemesis picking branches out of her tightly curled hair. She’d found the gun and I heard it discharge as I hit the street. I could hear pears rolling around in the back of the car and wondered what I was going to do with them. Feed the hungry, the enemy agent had said and I liked that idea the best of any she’d had.
I patted the steering wheel as I drove, glad that the old woman hadn’t realized that it was hollow. The little canister of film inside it had weathered another storm.
NOTE: Newest items are at bottom of page.
IDENTITY CRISIS
By: Leslie Smith
For twenty years, my wife was my partner and lover.
We orchestrated lives that revolved around each other.
Then, death ripped her away from our impenetrable walls.
I grieved, as any man would when his home falls.
I then questioned my identity, who am I without her?
I felt like an amputee or a child without a mother.
I was unattached for the first time in my life,
No responsibilities, no attachments and no strife.
I considered where I really would like to work and live,
And who I want to be with and what I had to give.
I drove around the country and visited strange places,
And looked for my wife in other women’s faces.
After months, my heart once again drew me home.
The familiar was stronger than the urge to roam.
Now, grandchildren are where my love is aimed.
It’s not the same, but there’s no one to blame.
My wife is still with me, in joy and in strife,
And, I’ll be her husband for the rest of my life.
But, my adjustment has made my identity shift.
Being a Grandparent, will now be my gift.
Posted Feb. 18, 2009
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Naomi Johnson
I sat down at the bar, ordered straight Scotch from a bartender I didn't recognize. This had been the best day of my career and spring training hadn't even started yet. Sure, I pitched a no-hitter last fall and came within four outs of a perfect game just before the All-Star break. I already had two American League pennants and nobody wanted to bet I wasn't going to have a third once the Yankees said they wanted to sign me.
Well, they signed me all right. Today I inked my name to a $160 million deal that made me one of the highest paid players in the major leagues. Most guys in my shoes would be out celebrating with beautiful babes and any number of moochers and hangers-on, but when I'm really happy I like to be on my own. Celebrate quietly. So I went to DiGamo's, my favorite place for drinking and meditating. The plan was to have a couple then head back to my apartment. There wasn't anyone to call and share the good news. My agent already knew about it since he arranged the deal, and the news would be all over ESPN in the next hour. Family? None. Girlfriend? Not since – well, that's another story. Buddies? Teammates? All scattered across the country, the globe even, during the off season.
So just me and – ?
'What's your name?' I ask, when the guy puts my drink in front of me. I drop a fifty on the bar as he says, 'Pete.'
'You're new here, Pete?'
'Nah, I usually work here during the summer, when school's out.'
'Isn't there school today?'
'Yeah, but not for me. I'm one of the teachers who got laid off. 175 of us. It was in the news.'
'Yeah, I saw it in the paper last week.' Geez, I feel bad for the guy. Me, a ball player, I just hit the jackpot and this educator was scrambling for a paycheck. 'What did you teach?'
'Art.' And he goes down the bar in answer to a signal from another patron.
Art, of course. Art, music, drama, language, those subjects take the first cut every time there's a budget crisis. Ever notice that? Ever notice how rare it is for high-level administrators and school board members to lose their jobs?
If a defense of the arts sounds odd coming from a major league pitcher, maybe it's because this isn't what I started out wanting to be. When I was nine, my class went on a field trip to see a play, a local production of 'Cyrano de Bergerac.' It turned my head inside out and my world completely around. I'd never known words could be put together like that, in so many different ways; words that could make you laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. From that day on, until I was 15, I wanted to write plays. I saw as many plays as I could, raising money for the tickets by selling stolen car parts at flea markets, then when I was old enough to work legally, by putting on a Mickey D cap or a KFC or Wendy's uniform, whoever was hiring and paying. Staying out of jail became important to me. There isn't a lot of theater in prison. At least not on stage.
I saw Joel Grey in the revival of 'Cabaret.' Mandy Patinkin in 'Sunday in the Park With George.' I even saw James Earl Jones in 'Othello.' I saw every play I could scrape up a ticket for and some that I sneaked into. I learned about being a stage hand and a property master. But mostly I read plays and I wrote plays, and I wrote more, always more. Notebooks full, my locker stuffed with loose papers. But my sophomore year in high school, the budget ax fell and it fell where it always does, on the arts. Kids who wanted to paint and sculpt suddenly had no teacher. Kids who needed Latin, French or Spanish to get into college but couldn't afford a private tutor were all of a sudden looking at having to go to junior college first. There was still a marching band of course, I mean every football team needs one of those, right? But no choir. No plays, no drama club, no art fair, no student concerts. And the drama teacher went, too, of course. I had no one to turn to about how to maintain tension in a scene, about developing character without dialogue, that kind of stuff.
And even when the cuts were 'restored,' they weren't really. Spanish came back, but not French or Latin. Art classes returned but not as many as there had been; you had to be a full-blown Picasso to get a place in one of the few classes offered. Drama? You're kidding, right? When was the last time you knew of a full-time drama teacher in the inner city schools? Instead of being in a drama course I was placed in an English class where, no kidding, our text was Reader's Digest. The teacher assumed that malnourished inner-city kids were all functional illiterates and that 'Humor in Uniform' was about all we could aspire to.
So I was frustrated and I took my frustration out on the baseball diamond. Why not? Sports always seems to get support money, ever notice that? I was too skinny and lightweight for football, but baseball was different. Every time I hurled that white sphere toward the catcher's mitt I was really aiming at the head of the school board. I killed him thousands of times but it was never enough. At bat, I usually swung for the superintendent's head, and on the days when I couldn't miss I sometimes went for my English teacher's cranium. That was enough reason for me not to miss. So I got to be good at it, just through constant practice and suppressed rage..
As for writing, I didn't. I tore up all my plays and threw'em away. And my short stories, my poems, everything I'd written. I quit the dream. If I'd only stayed with it, maybe if I'd given that much practice and anger to what I really loved, what might I be today? Probably an out-of-work, unpublished playwright. A happy, out-of-work, unpublished playwright.
'Another one?' Pete was asking.
'Why not?' And he brings my drink and I say, 'Guess you're glad to be out of there, huh? I mean, the stories I hear about kids these days...'
And he looks right at me, angry, and says, 'Is that what you think? That teaching art is just a paycheck?'
I don't answer the question, just say, 'So you'd do it again if you could?'
'In a New York minute, Mr. Dominguez. Would you still play baseball if they weren't paying you $160 million?'
Oops, I guess ESPN has broken the story already.
I'm surprised because nobody ever asked me that question before, including me. Would I still play if not for the big money? And just in this instant I know now, without the millions of dollars to seduce me into staying on the pitcher's mound, I'd've gone back to doing what I'd really wanted to do all along. How much money did I need, anyway? How much was going to be enough before I'd let myself walk away from more? Was there any amount that would actually make me happy? Happier than writing plays?
Realistically my time for that dream had come and gone. Mine was gone, sure, but how many other kids were out there, still dreaming? And dreaming of something besides the touchdown pass, the slam dunk, the no-hitter?
'Hey, Pete, give me something to write on,' I say. He hands me a paper coaster and I write down my phone number, the one I never give out to strangers. 'I'm thinking of starting a school for the arts. Music, drama, painting, film, dance, the works. If you're interested in a teaching position, give me a call. You got some friends that got laid off, let'em know.'
He gives me the fish eye. 'Say, how many have you had, buddy?'
