...Pertaining to Easter

      On Easter Sunday in 1938, my father Richard V. Shields, Jr. of Pelahatchie, MS married my mother Erma Belle Paschal in Bessemer, AL.  My family believes that the derivation of the name Shields likely comes from the Scotch-Irish folk who probably were armorers.  We know that the definition of Paschal means pertaining to Easter, which made the choice of the wedding date for the bride most appropriate.

     The couple made their way to Moss Point, MS and became the parents of two sons.  In 1948, they added a daughter to the family and shortly before my sister’s  birth, my mother contracted Bell’s Palsy which effected the nerves on one side of her face. On Easter Sunday of that year, an aunt, my father’s sister, in Mobile, AL visited my mother and the new addition to the family and brought, as a gift, a rose bush.  We always referred to the rose as the Aunt Mary Rose, but years later an attempt to determine the correct name left us reasonably sure that it was a heirloom tea rose, cream in color, named the Paschal rose.  Pretty appropriate, don’t you think?  But, wait, there’s more.  The new daughter was named Lenore Paschal Shields.

     While the rose was not particularly outstanding when open in full bloom, the bud shapes and colors were perfect!  And the bush was prolific in putting out new plants from the root system.  We dug the new volunteer plants and shared them with friends and neighbors throughout the county and far beyond.  At one time, everyone in my neighborhood had one of these roses in their yard.

      But roses are somewhat like people.  Some just get old and die.  Others contract some malady.  And when Hurricane Katrina came in 2005 and covered the vast majority of the bushes with salt water…though only for a short while…it was the death knell for the Aunt Mary/Paschal rose.  We couldn’t find a single survivor.

     A few years ago, neighbors Joe and Sarah May found a small rose bush nestled in high weeds on one of the higher places on the boundary of their property. It should be noted that their property was ones of the most saturated by the storm.  They began to pamper the bush and feed it.  It survived and grew.

      Today is Easter Sunday, 2014…sixty-six years after the introduction of the rose to Moss Point.  As I got ready for church this morning, a visitor came to my door.  Sarah May.  And she had company.  On this Easter Sunday, the rose decided to open its first bloom.  Pertaining to Easter.  How cool is that?  I wore the rose on my lapel to church.

      I suppose that should be a sufficient way to end this story, but I had one more decision to make.  What should I do with the single bloom?  It didn’t take to much effort to make the correct…actually, the only possible decision.  I gave it to my granddaughter. Clare Paschal Baumhauer.

     But Easter is a special day and harbors other special memories.

     As and old friend and I were talking about the events of the Easter rose, I was reminded of yet another Easter Sunday tradition in Moss Point and many other cities and towns across the land.  The Easter sunrise service.

     There used to be two ways in which the communities around us celebrated the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday.  Neither of these ways paid homage to the pomp of the Easter parades and the clothing finery that usually accompanies the holiday where families, particularly the ladies, use the date as justification for buying new clothes for each family member and insure that all of the family is at church well before time for sermon and seated in as conspicuous a pew location as possible.  On this Sunday, they don’t mind taking seats much closer to the front of the church than they normally do.  This allows them a longer walk when they exit following the sermon.  Longer walks mean more exposure.  But this practice takes place several hours after sunrise.

     At sunrise, the first opportunity to recognize the celebration of the resurrection was to attend the service hosted by the Lutheran Church that was held at the old drive-in theater.  This was the way that my mother often began the day and her children were often with her.  I don’t remember my father attending this service but as an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, he was certain to be present at the regular eleven o’clock service.  Mama and the kids were not only excused from the need to dress for the occasion and usually attended in outfits that could hardly be considered finery.  They wore their pajamas.  The old station wagon slowly drove down the side street that bounded Jerry Lee’s Grocery and eased past the booth that would have been selling tickets had a movie been playing.  Mama would find one of the less conjested areas for parking  just in case someone  parked nearby actually cared to look and see what others were wearing.  This never seemed to matter much since the attendance was always pretty sparse and the fact that many of the speakers that we would take off of the poles and bring into our car to be hung from the driver’s window didn’t work and we had to move around to find one that functioned.  That done, the service would be held and the cars would leave the dusty parking lot and head home so that the kids could begin preparation for attending the regular morning services for their respective churches and the mothers could put the finishing touched on Easter dinners.

     Moss Point got its name because it is located on the confluence of the Pascagoula River and the Escatawpa River.  Hence, Moss Point adopted the marketing moniker, the River City.  My earliest memories of Easter sunrises were held on the bank of an offshoot of the Escatawpa that was located only a short distance from the City Hall.  There was a small sand bar that was located between stands of marsh grass and weeds that provided an adequate and comfortable location for worshipers to sit in their lawn chairs brought from home or to stand if they preferred.  And its location to the river provided the perfect angle to view a magnificent sunrise. 
For some reason, as the town changed, there were several years when the service was held about a mile and a half away on the banks of the Pascagoula river that towered a good six or eight feet above the river and provided more and better seating possibilities but far worse views of a sunrise to remember the Son rise.



     But my favorite and most vivid memory of Easter Sunrise Services was to be years later when, for some reason that I can’t recall, neither of the two locations were available.  We are talking about the 1960’s.  Canceling a church service was not an option.  Canceling an Easter service would have been a heresy.  But where could it be held?  The football stadium was suggested.  It faced the wrong direction, but no one had a better idea.  A person was selected to approach the school superintendent and get permission so that the location could be made official and communicated throughout the community.  And then the word came back. DENIED!

     Unbelievable!  But a rationale came back with the verdict.  The superintendent posited that if he should grant the request for usage and was later approached with a similar request for different and more controversial purposes, he would have no grounds for denial.  Therefore, he chose the policy that he would grant usage to no one.

     With Easter fast approaching and no viable alternative in sight, word of the denial filtered back to my mother who was in the early stages of her battle with a form of muscular dystrophy.  She never said a word to anyone.  Quietly, she shuffled to the telephone and called the office of the superintendent and asked for an appointment.  When asked the nature of her business, she replied, “it’s personal”.  Her appointment was scheduled for the following Tuesday. at two o’clock.

      The office was located one block from my mother’s house and directly across the street from the football stadium.  At five minute’s until two on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, Erma Shields, dressed in her plastic braces and pants suit, presented herself to the school secretary.  Being tardy was never an option for an old school teacher.  It was an option for the administrator who kept her waiting for almost a half hour before he had his secretary usher her in and offer her a seat.

     “Good afternoon, Mrs. Shields.  What can I do for you today?”

     “Actually, I’m here to do something for you.\

     “I don’t understand.

     “It’s my understanding that you denied a request to use the stadium for the sunrise service.  Is that correct?

     “It is.  I believe that this would open the door to many other requests that we would be unable to manage.

     “So that leads me to believe that you think you are empowered to grant or deny usage to the stadium.

     “As superintendent of the school, I do have that power and responsibility.

     “And that brings me to the purpose of my visit.  Perhaps you are unaware that the land on which the stadium is built was deeded by the Dantzler family, not to the school but  to the children of the city of Moss Point, with the provision that should they ever be denied access or usage, the land would revert back to the donors.  Is that your intention?  Because if it is, I’m certainly willing to help you publicize your intention.”

     In the next few weeks, two things happened.  One was an accelerated effort on the part of several lawyers, working with the heirs of the Dantzler family, to negotiate revisions to the language of the gift that would grant control over the stadium to the school administration.  The second was that on a beautiful Easter morning, the sun rose directly behind several hundred worshipers seated in the bleachers of the stadium named after L. N. Dantzler I.
 
     And my mother smiled and said no more about it.

     And that’s the way I’ll remember it.

The Bucket List

For those who didn’t go to see the well-received film with the same title as this post, a bucket list is simply an itemized set of ambitions that one hopes to achieve before they ‘kick the bucket’ and depart from their earthly life.  This opens the door for some creative and ambitious thinking.

One would think that those of us who have reached an age that presumably allows us to see a light at the end of a tunnel and to consider that light might not be an on-coming train would be those most likely participate in this form of pondering.  So it came as a bit of a surprise when I heard the bucket list ambition coming from a 12-year old. 

“I want to swim with the dolphins.  It’s on my bucket list.”

Actually, the statement brought about two separate reactions from me.  First was the surprise that a 12 year-old would even conceive of having such a list and second, the realization that a 72 year-old had never considered having one. Pretty unambitious, I thought.  Or maybe just too easily satisfied and that was something I’d rarely been accused of!

I’ve spent some time thinking about this.  I have more time to consider these issues as this point in my life when I’m the only resident of the house on Griffin Street.  I reach a lot of conclusions…some have little, if anything, to do with the original premise, many are not altogether logical, and all are subject to change on any pretext or whim I choose to invoke. 

Are there things that I regret not having done?  Is it too late to do them?  Are there valid reasons for doing/not doing them?  Are the reasons really excuses?

Conclusion One: I’ve decided that there is a big difference between changing things that we have done and regretting having done them. Only a fool (I can already hear snickering) would refuse to change something that was obviously wrong.  And I suspect we all could have a long list of these types of things.  But I think that some of my unbelievably foolish decisions probably provided many of the major ‘lessons learned’ in my life and, as a result, likely kept me from making more…and more serious… mistakes.  Should that be the case, how can I regret them entirely?

Conclusion Two:  Like everyone with even a hint of imagination, I harbored ambitions of doing things that have gone undone.  Going to the Calgary Stampede in Canada, seeing the Galapagos Islands, spending time in the Caribbean and the Northwest, becoming qualified to teach at the college level all were on my itinerary at one time or another.  None of them got done. And today, none of them seem very important.  Could I still do some of them?  Probably.  Do I feel the drive to leap into action and rectify these omissions?  Not a bit!

My priorities have changed. I have changed.  Ten years ago I received a typed letter from my favorite (only) brother-in-law that was addressed to my two brothers and me.  It is the most outstanding letter I’ve ever received.  In it, he spoke of the things that he valued as the principles of his life and how he related them to our extended family.  He said. “Don’t ask me why, out of the blue, I would write these things, but you think about things you should say and then they never get said.  Well, that is not going to happen to me, because I’ve said them”.  He said what he wanted us to know and he said it well.  I’ll always treasure his words and his initiative.  I’ve tried to use that lesson in my life to speak to people who are important to me and let them know how I feel about them, just as Joe did to me.

Conclusion Three and Four:  Someday it will be too late to do things.  But none will get done without starting them.  And changing things have consequences.  The results from deeds done fifty years ago may play upon all of our memories and consciences and perhaps we still have the opportunity to clarify them.  But will the result be a better one or should we just let things remain as they are?  Not always an easy decision.  Perhaps the error we made could be worse should we resurrect it and try to correct it. Two wrongs make a wrong-er.

The bottom line is that I have decided that I don’t need a bucket list.  I know that I, like everyone, am bound to accept the responsibility for my decisions and actions.  Or inactions.  Good or bad.  That sounds very noble but the fact it that I have no choice.  I will be ultimately be judged and, gratefully, I will be forgiven.

But if I were going to have a bucket list, there is one item that I’d put on it.  I want to see my grandson swim with the dolphins.  And this spring, I'm going to do it.  I bought the tickets as a Christmas present last year and he’s waiting for warm weather.

Miss Hattie Daniel 1878-1973

Funny thing about our memories. Sometimes we have vivid recollections of events that we didn’t actually participate in but have heard about so often that we truly believe our recollections are based on first hand experience.  I suppose Miss Hattie Daniel was one of those memories for me.

Every one called her Hattie or Miss Hattie.  She lived most of her life alone with the exception of her final years when she moved in with another elderly woman we all called Grandma Breland.  Hattie was considered to be a loner with few friends.  She could be difficult at times, but when you are answerable to no one, it’s a lot easier to be difficult.

Unlike my parents, two recent college graduates with high hopes for the future but empty bank accounts, Miss Hattie owned a house she had inherited and she rented it as the primary source of her income.  My parents lived in that house for approximately a year and a half, leaving it when I was three years old to buy a house three blocks away that would become the Dantzler Street ‘home’ for the Shields family that would eventually grow to six.

Miss Hattie’s house was on Griffin Street - a street that was still unpaved in the early 1940's when we lived there although it had provided the bed foundation for an old streetcar line.   The streetcar had run between Moss Point and the Pascagoula beach during the times prior to the depression when the local sawmill and timber industries led the world in exporting yellow pine lumber.  No one could have remotely suspected that after more than 60 years later, I would have lived at an address across the street from Hattie’s house for almost a half century.  I still do.

But true to the stereotype of the old spinster woman, Hattie’s reputation was that she didn’t like children.  Couldn’t abide them.  Wouldn’t abide them!  But as legend would have it, she made a single exception.  Me.  

According to my mother (and some of her friends) Hattie actually volunteered to baby sit me once during the time my parents were moving their belongings to the new address on Dantzler Street.  I have no idea whether or not I was being difficult (aren’t all three year olds?) but apparently Hattie thought I was and proceeded to admonish or threaten me…depending on whose version of the story you choose to believe.  But, as the tale progresses, she turned her back for a brief period and like a flash, I disappeared.  Could not be found. 

Hattie panicked.  What was she going to tell my mother?  Why had she agreed to do this anyway?  The search party was quickly formed although I suspect that my mother might have considered its ultimate function of the posse to be that of a lynch mob.  An hour passed.  Almost another hour elapsed before I was found.  Safe…sound…and hiding from Miss Hattie.  When asked why I had done it, I told them I was afraid of her.

I have no doubt that Hattie never considered for a minute that a three year old would actually be so fearful of her that they would run and hide.  And when she realized it, it made a huge impression.  Gifts began to come.  A solid wood wardrobe closet that was hand-made by her uncle from heart pine cut in the mill a quarter of a mile down the street. A mahogany bed that was used by one of her ancestors (probably Francis B. Daniel who is buried next to Hattie in Griffin Cemetery) to convalesce when he came home wounded from the Civil War.  And a steamer trunk that was alleged to have belonged to a ship’s Captain on one of the sailing ships that came up the river to the sawmills empty and sailed back loaded with lumber for the Caribbean.  All gifts to Richard from Hattie.  My Mother called them peace offerings. 

I called them great. They were my prized possessions. I slept in that bed for years and still have it in what I now refer to as a guest bedroom.  Still have the wardrobe and trunk as well.  But more importantly, I still have the memories of Miss Hattie  And they’re all good.

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When you're wrong...you're wrong!

A friend of mine was fond of the phrase, “If you want to start an argument, you’re going to have to change the subject”.  I suppose this is a classic way of saying that there is nothing that you can say when you can’t take issue with the obvious. Today, I found myself in that situation.

Several years ago, I set out to document some of the meaningful memories of my life and tried to tell them in a way that others might enjoy and keep at least some significant portions of truth in the telling.  For some reason, I stopped.  I told myself that I wasn’t inspired or that I couldn’t find a subject that I really wanted to write about.  The truth is that I probably just didn’t want to make the effort or that other priorities in my life came before the writing.  It just didn’t seem important.

Today, I had a wonderful experience!  An epiphany, if you will.  On a whim, I called a friend from my childhood to thank her for a kindness that she had honored me with and we proceeded to have a marvelous conversation.  We talked about things in our developmental years.  Our parents and the influence that they had on us. Our church…both past and current and the roles it played in determining what we were to become and who we are today.  We spoke of our children.  And their children.  We probably could have gone on for hours.  I know I could have.

And then the bomb dropped.  She asked why I had stopped writing.  After a couple of lame attempts to justify my actions (in this case, inactions), it dawned on me that every thing that we had been chatting about was actually fertile ground that just needed to be turned and planted.  (place comments regarding organic fertilizer here at your peril).  So I promised her that I would make the attempt without committing to a specific schedule.

There was a line in the movie, Dirty Dancing that said, “When I’m wrong, I say I was wrong”.  And I was.  Thanks, Sherry.

The ErmaFest

ErmaFest! That’s the name my brother Tommy came up with. And it fits.

Several months ago, my sister and favorite brother-in-law sat in my den and we began to tell stories. As always, it didn't take long before the primary object of many of the stories became my mother, Erma Shields. You've heard some people described as “people who make news'? My mother made stories. They seemed to breed wherever she was. She was a story incubator. Sometimes she was the teller, sometimes the subject, but never the spectator. She was always involved.

As the evening went on, we realized that twenty-plus years after her passing, there was an entirely new generation of her ancestry that had never had the opportunity to meet her or know her well, and who had never even heard many of the stories we were enjoying. So we decided to do something about it. And on the day before Mother's Day, we scheduled the ErmaFest. We would have a meal and invite family, friends, neighbors, and associates from her school teaching days. As the price of admission, attendees were asked to either bring a story they were willing to share or to bring a question about a story they had heard. And most did. But those closest to her enthusiastically did the most telling and the new generation was pretty much relegated to the roles of listeners and learners. It was hard to tell who had the best time.

The star of the day had to be Wayne Parker. Wayne was a young teacher when he began his association with my mother. She never became Erma to any of her workmates. She was always Mrs. (pronounced Miz in true Southern tradition) Shields. Wayne was always her strong right arm when she was at school. I’m not sure that she viewed him more as a friend or as a son, but I was always glad that she never had to make a choice between keeping Wayne or me. I could have been in trouble. With people like Wayne and Virginia Williams, I was privileged to hear a few stories that I had never heard before.

Wayne told of the time that an assistant superintendent of the school system sent out a directive to all of the teachers regarding professionalism. Unfortunately, the letter must not have been proof read and went to the distribution of more than 100 teachers with an undiscovered spelling mistake. Most people would not embarrass one of their bosses with something so trivial. Most people were not my mother. Wayne said, “out came the red pencil. She circled the error, assigned a ten-point deduction for the mistake, signed her name to the paper, and returned it to his office. We waited for the explosion. We never heard a word”.

Memories like this usually stir other memories of a related nature. My sister quickly followed with another story of a time when a friend had sent a note of some sort to my mother…likely a ‘thank you’ note…that also involved a spelling inaccuracy. Erma did not play favorites - not even to polite college graduates. Out came the red pencil. The paper was graded and returned. The offender was amazed that anyone took spelling so seriously. Erma was a teacher 24 – 7. Another lesson taught. Another lesson learned.

But the thing I enjoyed the most about the day was when one of my nephews, now 28 years old and who had known my mother only briefly, told his parents how functions like this had led him to understand how important family and heritage is and how he had come to appreciate it. That was my definition of success for the ErmaFest.

And that’s how I will remember it.

Transition Points

Transition points are times in your life that are defining moments...times that are highlights in your development...times that have major impacts in determining who you are and who you will become.

Research has shown that transition points are also the times that people past the age of forty - and I more than qualify on that count - remember most vividly. The beginning of the college experience is usually one of the graphic memories that people retain. I suppose that I would have made a good research subject, because this is one of the experiences that seems to have stayed with me. And, for some reason, I revisit it on a regular basis.

The year is 1959. A seventeen year-old finishes in the top ten in his high school graduating class of 156 without having to bother to develop any particularly strong study habits. He has a younger sister and two younger brothers. He has no particular strengths or weaknesses. He may feel a bit better than average were it not for his lack of confidence in himself and a lack of experience with some social skills peculiar to teenage boys.

His parents have spent most of their working lives as school teachers. His family has never missed a meal. In fact, they've never missed out on anything that they truly needed. But the prospect of financing college expenses for four children was an obvious and significant enough issue that even a seventeen year-old understood that the task could become daunting. He needed to find a way to help.

The local shipyard was the largest private employer in the state and they were beginning a co-operative education program. Two high school graduates would be selected. They will alternate attending school for a semester and working a semester and if their school work is satisfactory, they will be guaranteed a job each alternate semester until their senior year when they will attend school full time.

I was that seventeen year-old. I applied and was scheduled for an interview where I learned that all students must be engineering majors (whatever that meant, I had no clue). I would be required to attend either Mississippi State University or Auburn University. With Auburn being located in a foreign country (Alabama) that would require out-of-state tuition )that would come out of my pocket) the decision came easily. Mississippi State. Hands down!

My father was an excellent communicator. He had taken the time to teach me two of the basic facts of life. Fact One: High school graduation is not the end of anything. It is the beginning of something; either college or full-time employment...immediately. Fact Two: See Fact One.

In 1959, social security numbers were not issued until you were eighteen and you were required to have one to work in a defense installation. And, so, it came to pass that I graduated from Moss Point High School on a Friday night, slept late on Saturday morning, and packed my earthly belongings on Saturday afternoon. They all fit in one suitcase and an old footlocker.

On a Sunday morning in May 1959, my entire family, along with all of my stowage, fit into a Ford station wagon and began the trip North to a location where none of us had ever been for even a visit. Starkville, Mississippi.

I had no idea that this would turn out to be one of the longest-running memories of my life. So far, it has continued for a half-century. There is more to be written on this subject, but this is the way it began. And this is the way I remember it.

Little League Comes to to Moss Point

I've always claimed that the best form of youth baseball possible was one that eliminated all form of parental participation. I stand by that position when the object of the game is to have fun.

But I would be less than truthful if I failed to admit that organized youth baseball did come with some significant benefits…and some of them are experienced by the kids.

You got to play with better equipment and you got better instruction. And, most importantly, you met kids from outside your neighborhood. I was eleven years old. Little League baseball came to Moss Point.

It seems like yesterday when I set foot on the property that housed the first real baseball field that I’d ever seen. In fact, it WAS yesterday. The property is now a restaurant. And the one small original Little League field long ago moved to a property where an entire complex of baseball fields could co-exist, each feeding the needs of specific age groups. A good friend and I had eaten lunch and were talking about our children and grandchildren and the subject of baseball had come up.

Unbelievable! Standing there leaning against my truck, not fifty feet from where the old home plate was. Looking at cars parked where the small set of bleachers sat along the first base line. Seeing the small rise in the earth where the right field fence had terminated and remembering that if someone, usually batting left-handed, really crushed one, that little hill was what usually stopped the ball. At least I can use being right-handed as my excuse for never introducing a baseball to that hill or the old service station that was at its apex.

It all began with four teams in Moss Point and four more in the neighboring community of Pascagoula. The regularly scheduled games would be within your city but there would be an all-star game at the completion of the season between the best the two cities had to offer.

There were two primary assets to be chosen to one of the teams. Today, Little League teams (or equivalent programs) are basically regulated on the basis of the participant’s age. Eleven and twelve year olds were Little Leaguers and when they became teenagers, they moved on to Babe Ruth League. But in the fifties, there was another criteria. Talent. There weren’t enough kids in Moss Point (that played baseball) to fill the rosters of four teams that first year. So tryouts were held for kids younger than eleven and if they played at an acceptable level, they made a roster. It’s pretty humbling to be one of the wizened age-eligible players and to be on the same team as your eight year-old brother. And you immediately become concerned at the possible scenarios of all-star selection.

Fortunately, my experience in the neighborhood pickup games stood me in good stead. I had learned that if you were willing to play catcher, you were likely to play. And in this league, there was protective equipment! Our coach was Leon Hammond and he knew everything there was to know about baseball. And he shared it all with us. It never occurred to us that his age wasn’t a lot older than ours. He was a adult that we owed our attention and respect. And we had parents that insured that he got it.

Wilkerson Freight Lines, EMBA, Monroe-Woods, and PMP Bank were the team sponsors and team members immediately developed an affinity for their benefactors. Member of opposing teams become your enemies….at least on game night.

I don’t remember the outcome of the regular season that first year, but it must not have been too good for Monroe-Woods or I probably would have complete recall. And no one named Shields made any all-star teams. But we learned one of the most important things that any baseball player can learn; how to say, “Wait until next year!”.

In those days, you actually played baseball during the summer instead of the current practice of insuring that baseball is over by the close of school so that it doesn’t interfere with summer vacations or the plans of parents. What a contradiction! Kid’s activities scheduled to be convenient to their parents! Things have changed.

But year-two arrived quickly. The twelve year olds from the previous year were gone. The new twelve-year olds, including me, now were the senior members with set positions and the respect that the uniform insured. The word had gotten out that Little League baseball was a good thing. And kids from outside the corporate limits were trying to catch on with teams. This year, there would be no problem with filling rosters. This year, competition would be fierce!

Tryouts for teams would be a formal process wherein applicants would announce their preference of positions and show their talents that would qualify them for the limited openings. And those trying out for pitcher positions required a catcher to show their skills.

Us veterans would actually have an influence in selecting pitchers. Our importance to the teams was being recognized. Coach Hammond took me and the other Monroe-Woods catcher (an inexperienced eleven year old whose name escapes me) to the tryout area and assigned me a prospect to test.

My heart sank! A short, chubby, nonathletic looking twelve-year old from Wade. How could he even consider doing this to me? Where was some stylish southpaw like Lefty Posey? What about some tall fireballer like Jimmy Davis? I recognized that all of the kids couldn’t be legends in their own time, but this was surely beneath my dignity.

He said that his name was Joey. He was pretty quiet and we just tossed a few balls back and forth as he loosed up. “You ready?”, he asked. “Sure”. And he started throwing. Each pitch seemed to be harder than the one before. It didn’t take me long to figure out that this kid was throwing harder than anyone I’d ever seen or caught. And he was hitting my mitt wherever I put it. Until he unleashed a wild pitch that was far to my left. As I moved to make the catch, a miracle happened. The ball made a sweeping arc and I was barely able to knock it down on the RIGHT side of the plate.

Curve ball! I’d never seen one before. At least not one like that!

“Can you do that again?”. “Every time”. “And control it?” “Put your mitt where you want it”.

And he could. And he did.

Suddenly I found myself looking around to see if anyone was watching. Hoping that no one was. I quietly walked beside my new best friend and said, “Let’s find the coach”. I knew who I wanted for my pitcher. I’ve made a few good decisions in my life. This was one of the better ones. Joey was an instant All-Star. And he made an all-star out of me. No one else wanted to catch that curve ball. And the best part about it was that I didn’t have to bat against him. Until Babe Ruth League…but that’s another story.

More than a half-century later, I realize that not batting against Joey wasn’t really the best part. The best part was learning at age twelve that judging people by their appearance is dangerous and usually wrong. And that people should be respected for their accomplishments and not for their neighborhood. And that it’s often the case that when you try to do something for someone else, you are the one that gains the most!

Thanks, Joey.

That’s the way I remember it.