Players, Personality and Major Fuego for the Game

 

“Hey, Fuego fans, let’s pass the hat for Matt Patrone’s home run,” the PA announcer says amid cheers. I’m certain Patrone’s blast here in Fort Marcy Ballpark, a Pecos League venue, would have been at least a ground rule double in about any major league park (a place no fan passes a hat for home runs after paying what he did to get into the park).

The next hitter lines a pitch out of play toward the parking lot behind the dugout. Hard hitters, these Santa Fe Fuegos.

“That foul ball is brought to you by Discount Glass and Glazing. Just mention Fuego baseball and get a discount on your next purchase.” I love it. This place has personality.

The woman in charge of collecting money for tickets wanders over to me from her top row seat. She’s right on time. We’d made a deal if I liked the place I chose to sit with my dog, Rusty, after two trial innings, she’d only charge $3. Dogs aren’t allowed in the $6 seats behind home plate. Either way, what bargains. I’m glad the Fuegos are in an independent pro baseball league, not even a minors system affiliated with a team in the majors. Think I’d be able to bring my beach chair, let alone dog, into their ballparks?

Sitting behind the Trinidad Triggers dugout, Rusty and I notice a Trigger player come our way. On his walk to the park’s all purpose port-a-potty, he stops to pet Rusty. He even lets me take pictures of the two together. On his return trip to the dugout, he gives Rusty some more love, saying that with so much time on the road, he misses his dogs back home terribly.

Strangely, however, the Trigger player doesn’t go into the dugout, but sits on top of it. In fact, neither the Triggers nor Fuego players sit in their dugouts – they sit around the dugouts.  It must be a Pecos League tradition. Again, what personality.

Out of nowhere, a pop foul comes my way and I catch it! – something I’ve never done in all my years attending crowded major league and AAA games. I feel special, like a kid again. I’d like to think that’s what baseball should be, a special connection directly from pitcher to batter to fan. To continue the link, I give my cherished first ball to a two-year-old who’s apparently already caught baseball fever.

Where else do you bring your own lawn chair to a professional baseball game? Negotiate a price and place to sit with your dog? Have more fun, pay less and see a competitive sporting event?  Switch gears from watching the game on the field to playing catch with a kid and then going back to the game. See players perform for practically nothing just for the love of the game?

Where else is there a meeting on the field of every team member in the bottom of the fifth inning for team unity, spirit and awareness of what this is all about?  Where else is there a pro sporting event where the majority of fans leave their cell phone behind? Fuego baseball is where.

It’s life in the moment for fans and particularly the impressionable young men playing. It’s a spirited, fast game. You have to watch closely. There are no scoreboard replays, let alone bathrooms every fifty feet.

I love the game just the way it is. I’m sorry the season is over. I’ll be back for 2016, connecting this season’s joy with the next.

Memorial Day, Mom and Maid Marion

For me these days, Memorial Day is about recalling memories of my mother, gone ten years now this November. Even as a boy, one who often sized his mom up as the Wicked Witch of the West and Cruella de Vil all in one, I realized Mom was everything, my queen, buried beneath an unfortunate plight.

On one drizzly Saturday afternoon, I stayed inside to watch TV in the basement. Curled up on the couch, basking in the warmth and eternal sunshine of Sherwood Forest, I viewed the entire two hours of The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn as Robin and Olivia deHavilland as Marion. The swashbuckling action and colorful pageantry of the uplifting tale thrilled me. But there was more to the story than that.

I most loved watching the scenes of Robin’s comradeship with the poor townsfolk, and particularly his quest for Maid Marion’s elusive love and attention. Zoned in on this sub-story, only one thing interrupted my focus.

The gentle whir from the sewing machine seemed much louder today than usual. I glanced across the basement at Mom, hunched over in her hard chair, struggling to darn clothes on our antiquated Singer sewing machine.

When I reconnected with Marion on screen, I saw a woman who – under the lavish headbands and finely darned dresses she wore – reminded me of Mom, her pretty face and petite body trying to reveal their selves.

If only Mom smiled more, I thought. When I looked at her, sometimes I wondered if she’d have been happier born in Marion’s times. I wished she could hold herself higher knowing she, too, was pretty and often kind. Like Marion, she stitched her own clothes and made home a court for her king. Had Dad ever noticed her face, her work, her beauty? Why did she take the disrespect, just to be Official Andberg Family Martyr for all her pain and suffering? I hoped one day she’d let loose of the rules, the ties that bound her, to be more joyful like Marion. Mom and Marion were inseparable to me and would be forever, while Robin became my hero instantly, and role model for life.

In his book, “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood,” Howard Pyle wrote, “So passed the seasons then, so they pass now, and so they will pass in time to come, while we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten.”

Not forgotten, dear memories of Maid Marion – Mom.

The above excerpt is from my memoir, “Maybe Boomer.”

Sweet Spring, Sweet Surrender

“Maureen,” 18 x 24. Conte stick on paper

 

Spring.

Flowers bloom. Love blossoms. And dreams get crushed. Sometimes that’s what happens.

Regardless, the power of spring’s beauty is such that hope springs eternal every year. Like this spring. And next spring. And every spring I’m alive.

A particularly sweet spring – my sixteenth – occurred many years ago. The thrill of love, art, girls and winning combined for a lifetime worth of boyhood passion and intensity all in one season.

I’m pleased to share that story with you from this excerpt in Chapter 5, “Artistry,” from my memoir, Maybe Boomer.

I liked art class. It was different, a looser, free-flowing experiment in sociability as well as art media. The teacher often asked Maureen, a classmate one year behind me, to sit in a chair so the class could draw her, giving me the opportunity to stare at her freckles, low slung bell-bottoms, long brown hair, and exotic eyes. One minute, I fancied she liked me as more than the casual friends we were, the next minute not. Her penetrating smile always lured me in, either to bang my head against the wall in frustration or to try to get closer to her yet again. I was beginning to understand why the world associated love and art as inseparable, beautiful one minute, unsettling the next.

In this class, learning to dabble in the love of art and the art of love occurred simultaneously, but the art of love took precedence. I hoped my fascination with Maureen might lead to something.

Of all things, the attraction resulted in winning a Gold Key from the National Scholastic Arts Organization for a drawing I did of her in class. Using a fancy Conte’ a’ Paris pastel stick, I sketched Maureen as she posed in innocent, chaste fashion, cross-legged on the floor, writing in a notebook situated on her lap. Apparently, I’d also succeeded in shading her supple lips and tight shirt-covered breasts with a considerable amount of feeling – it sure got the judge’s eye.

It was news of winning the Gold Key that got Maureen’s attention. That night, unannounced, she drove over to my house.

When she said she came by just to say hi, I was flattered.

When we proceeded to go out for ice cream, I was nervous.

When we licked our ice cream cones while parked alone in her car, I froze.

As we sat together in the front seat, looking out over the high school’s tennis courts, even my chilled hand couldn’t keep butter pecan from melting all over the motionless cone.  Despite my statue-like position, thoughts and feelings raced through my mind, and I became oblivious to any signals she was sending.

After thirty long minutes of only coming to know her car’s interior intimately, the right side of her face exclusively, and the uneasiness of love exactly, Maureen released me of my burden by reaching over and kissing me on the cheek. Oversensitive, thinking I’d been weak for not rushing the net to make the first move, I never recovered, never scored as much as a single point. Worse yet, I whiffed showing her any of my heartfelt affection. Forty-love; game, set, match.

If words failed me, if touching scared me, if my own emotions threatened me, at least my passion had been comfortably freed to touch her through the segue of art. The memory of her would surely live on, but perhaps my greatest thrill came in creating a masterful work of art from my own hands for the first time, one inspired by Maureen.  

 

Diving into Valentine’s Day Wild Blue Yonder of Cyberspace Dating

Not too many years ago, spurred on by Valentine’s Day energy and excitement, I joined several online dating services.

A year later, instead of answering another computer match, I wrote in my journal, “The Dimensions of Combatibility List, Points 1 – 29, by Mike Andberg.”  The entry that day went something like this: 

 Tuesday.    From my online dating experiment, I’m even more cynical about women and compatibility than ever. Tired of reading ridiculous “match” profiles dating services have sent me, I’m writing this list to help clarify, without a doubt, the things I never want to experience in a “match” again, or, in other words, the kind of woman who:

1.)  Expresses love as the desire to “snuggle with my sig, my very special sum1.”
2.)  Wants “to do it ALL in life – sell real estate, too.”
3.)  Has “adorable kids living at home who are twenty-five and twenty-seven.”
4.)  Has “adorable kids living at home who are twenty-five and twenty-seven” and she’s forty-one.
5.)  Writes, “Still want to see everything – Indochina, Sri Lanka, South Africa – maybe you too?”
6.)  Has any part of her hair poofed.
7.)  Has big teeth, then tries to compensate with lots of poofs.
8.)  Actually considers ice-skating to be TV sports programming.
9.)  Says she already feels she’s known me forever and that it’s obviously from a past life.

 Not to mention a woman whose:

10.)  Perfect online man “will complement me in every way. If that’s you – LET ME KNOW!!!”
11.)  Every written sentence ends in an exclamation point.
12.)  Favorite month is “winter.”
13.)  Secret treasure is the magazine rack at the grocery check-out.
14.)  Best online photo is with her dog, and it’s a toss-up which I’d rather get close to.
15.)  Coffee table magazines are “Le Courier,” “The Economist” and “The Guardian.”
16.)  Every outfit must have rhinestones on it.
17.)  Toenails resemble fish scales. Or rhinestones.

Then there are the characteristics I have already experienced without help of online services about a woman who:  

18.)  Thinks a newborn baby is cuter than a puppy.
19.)  Wears hair rollers to the mall that day “to look good for everyone at the party tonight.”
20.)  Says, “No way!” to smoking, but lights up at the very whiff of Jagermeister.
21.)  Says she can eat hotter chili than anyone and downs it with a fifty dollar bottle of wine.
22.)  Demands diet colas but downs every Goober before the movie previews even start.
23.)  Reacts with “Hm-m-m” after every line in the movie.
24.)  Sneaks syrup to the dinner table.
25.)  Has more pets in her house than usable sharp knives.
26.)  Gets back at me by re-setting the car seat adjustments to fit Orson Wells.
27.)  Talks so much I review TV Guide in my head to survive.  
28.)  Likes to sleep in sky-diver positions.
29.)  Likes to sleep in sky-diver positions with all her pets.

Writing this list is SO cathartic. I’m taking a hefty gulp from an Old Fashioned to toast my accomplishment.

Wednesday.    The buzz has worn off. I feel like a schmuck. Sure, my list represents many real losers I’ve met. But let’s face it. Someone who says those things about women doesn’t deserve a date. I’m bound to show up on every “What Kind of Man to Absolutely NOT Date” list written by women all over online America.

Thursday    How on Earth does anybody live happily with one person every day for the entirety of a lifetime? I want to know, but it’s unfathomable to me how. It’ll take the rest of my life to answer that question. I guess I’ll just navigate life by myself in the meantime.

Friday    Wait a minute. Remember “Loaded and Looking,” “Real Women Have Curves,” and “Fun Waiting to be Had ?”  Dude – SO much more could be worse than navigating life by your damn self for a while.

 

The excerpt above is from the chapter titled “Girls” in my memoir Maybe Boomer.

Remember This? Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman album (or being miles from nowhere and back again)

November 23rd, 1970. On that day, Cat Stevens released his second album, Tea for the Tillerman. Yes, it was that long ago.

As I young teen sowing his primitive social and musical oats, I was a sponge. As I listen to the album now, drops from my musical memory bank bring back each song from this magical – often confusing – album, and with them, the angst and joy of those times.

Forty-four years ago today, sometime in the afternoon, I heard the album for the first time. Those hours resonate as if experienced today.

 

Side 1

“Where Do the Children Play?”
Instantly, I like this song. And it’s easy to play, basically all written around a D chord – my favorite one. Could I, would I, might I try to play it for friends? I bet they’d be  impressed.  But I’d only do it if they sang the lyrics. Playing the song is one thing; singing the damned thing is another.

“Hard Headed Woman”
I return the phonograph needle to the beginning of “Hard Headed Woman” three more before I get my fill. What beautiful violins. I’ve never heard classical music like this in a rock album. I’m so in the moment listening to “Woman,” although I don’t really know what he means by “hard headed.” I love how he yells out “I know!” in the line “I know … many fine feathered friends, but their friendliness depends on how you do.” I can yell it, too, but that’s about my only vocal contribution.

“Wild World”
Of course, everyone’s already heard this on the radio a million times. Because of “Wild World,” however, people will know who I’m talking about when I mention how great “the new Cat Stevens album is.”

“Sad Lisa”
Oh, God, the sad piano, and more violins – the violins. Now this is the kind of woman I know, a sad girl “with eyes like windows, tricklin’ rain.” It’s like Cat Stevens is speaking for her, for me. But the song doesn’t really work on guitar. It’s a piano song. I don’t have a piano. A man needs his guitar. Without one, I am sad. Bad sad.

“Miles From Nowhere”
Cat groans boisterously “Miles from nowhere!” And my own “nowhere” groan is pretty good, too. It’s great to sing out like this. And the chords are easy so I can strum loud like an electric guitar. “Miles from nowhere / not a soul in sight / but it’s alright / I have my freedom / I can make my own rules / The ones that I choose.” My once unflappable folk roots seem miles from nowhere, too.

Side 2

“But I Might Die Tonight”
I’m confused. It seems the words are knocking having a good job, getting ahead and all that. I mean, if Dad didn’t have a good job, wouldn’t our family be in poverty? And the song’s too short. I don’t get it.

“Longer Boats”
These lyrics are weird: “How does a flower grow?” “Longer boats?” “Mary dropped her pants by the sand and met a parson come and take her hand.” So far, Side 2 has taken me aback but, as usual, I don’t really care about lyrics. It’s the music that moves me. The guitar hook that sails from the beginning of “Boats” through to the end has landed me in musical bliss.

“Into White”
More strange lyrics, but, for some reason, I relate. Is it because I like to paint and he paints, too, like he did to create the scene on the album cover? His colors and subjects – “Brown-haired dogmouse,” “Yellow delanie,” and “Red-legged chicken” – are they all “emptying into white,” as if onto a blank white canvas? Or is Cat Stevens on drugs? It’s still a good song though.

“On the Road to Find Out”
Yes! I’ve figured out how to play the opening guitar riff. It’s hard up that high on the last two strings, but I get it. Yes,  I am Cat Stevens now! And I’m playing the song out in the woods of College Park (Maryland), simulating the woodland world depicted on the back photo of the album jacket. “On the Road to Find Out” is hard for me to sing but, being way out here, no one can hear that.

“Father and Son”
Dad’s not like the father portrayed in this song. He’s not the compassionate “I was once like you are now …” kind of father. But he’s never made me feel like yelling, “From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen [to you, Dad]” either. For this reason, even though it seems to be all my friend’s favorite song from the album, “Father and Son” has never been mine.

“Tea for the Tillerman”
Tea for the tillerman? What’s that? And this song is too short and too out there for me to get into. I can’t believe it’s the title song to the album.

Some songs on Tea for the Tillerman are not me. So why does the album grab me so hard? Why? The songs go round and round in my head. I can’t let them go. I can’t let the album go.

 

That was then. This is hindsight. Little did I know at the time how Cat Stevens’ album would speak for me, free me, both musically and personally. After inhaling his collection of tunes, I no longer felt miles from nowhere. Even if I inhaled life indirectly, I at least lived more. And from that place of experience, I moved on, matured, and learned life is a celebration – banquet, if you will – of love, people, events and beauty (and that “Tea for the Tillerman” is, after all, a good song, one all about life).

“Tea for the Tillerman”
Bring tea for the tillerman, Steak for the sun,
Wine for the woman who made the rain come
Seagulls sing your hearts away, ‘cause while
sinners sin the children play, Oh lord how they play
and play, For that happy day

 

 

The Unfathomable Lightness of Fur

I’m waiting in the “dog adoptee” holding room. I hope I’m doing the right thing. He looks so happy. But what if I adopt him and it doesn’t work out between us? Still, look at that smile. But what if staff comes blasting in with a file showing I’m on some subversive dog-hater’s list. Oh, come on. That’s not gonna happen, that’s not gonna … “Mike?” the shelter assistant says while opening the door. “Congratulations. Here’s just a little paperwork we need to go over and then he’s yours. He looks so happy.”
Wow, he hopped right into the back seat and made himself at home. Whew, that’s good, ‘cuz he’ll never fit in the front seat. Oh, I gotta take this picture of him, the “first ride ever in the back seat” photo. It feels good to have someone in the car with me. It gets lonely driving in here all alone.
I’ve waited all week to get out on our first hike. Shit, he never stops, and what is he – eight – they said? What’s that look back at me, like “can’t you move a little faster?” Yeah, but look at that face. I don’t think he could ever look mean, could he? … Finally, we’re going downhill now. Oh this feels so good. How I’ve missed the exhilaration I get from exercise. And look at that face.

God, I thought I was tired. He completely collapsed on the dog bed. That old dog bed, Woody’s old dog bed. I thought I’d never get another dog after Woody. He was so good. I’ve spent almost two years in an empty house. But something told me now was the time. Curious, casually looking over hundreds of dogs the past two weeks, then – bingo.

 

Cathy calls to say the photos I sent her are adorable and asks me what my new friend’s name is. I tell her he doesn’t have a name because he was found wandering the streets with no identification whatsoever. As I ramble on about what little back story I have on my dog-with-no- name, Cathy interrupts with, “Rusty. Why not name him Rusty? He looks rusty to me, you know, with all that brown.” From now on, I know his name will be Rusty. I like it. And it feels good to have my own sister give “Rusty” his name.

I take him to work today. Everyone – everyone – treats him so great, so special. I feel special. A co-worker says I look happier since I got Rusty. “Come on. Really?” I ask. “No, really,” she says. “You have.”

Rusty’s trying out the new bed. He looks … as if … he’s in bliss. How lucky he is. How lucky I am. After all, it was my boss who bought the bed for Rusty. Generosity of friends. Love of creatures. We’re both lucky, me and Rusty, and seemingly all who meet him.

 

It’s difficult for me to keep still sitting here. I usually hate having pictures taken. I usually don’t smile that much. The trail isn’t as remarkable when I hike it alone. But, okay, it’s done, it’s taken, let’s go, Rusty. Let’s go! Let’s go!

Scary Autumn Memories – Soap on a Rope and Empty-handed Blouse Copping

Peggy’s late October party was like entering a subterranean vault permeated with English Leather cologne. Apparently, first time users hadn’t been schooled on how much of the fragrant substance to mete out, while others seemed equally clueless about English Leather’s new soap sensation, Soap on a Rope, and how much to rub when bathing.

The girls at this gathering were certain about one thing, however. Despite the plush rug, couch and love seat provided for everyone to neck on, no girl used them for fear of being labeled a slut. As a result, a line formed outside the furnace room, the hostess’s special sanctuary offering heat and privacy for all her party guest’s make-out sessions.

I could visualize it now – guys making out with girls, faces plastered together, hands groping for skin while mouths gasped for air in the hot steamy darkness. Unfortunately, my opportunity with Mary – my current heartthrob – was closer to fumbling in the shadows, bobbing for anything soft and round, ducking under protruding shelves, reaching over hot pipes, and getting only as far as copping a cold blouse before burning my back on a hot water line. So embarrassed, it wasn’t until the family beach vacation later that summer that I finally took off my shirt in public.

I retreated to the love seat to be on my own (still too young to appreciate the irony). This wasn’t a make-out party but a strike-out fest. I dreamed how the incident might have gone better. But even the rewrites were bad, now including a cast of thousands.

One rewrite had Mom in it, saying, “Be careful, Michael. Do you know what you’re doing?”

Another starred Mary, looking down on me from above, laughing.

A third scenario featured Dad walking in, looking for his golf clubs, then walking out.

The last one involved police storming in, asking if my parents knew where I was.

Was every intimate moment in my life going to be some sort of ménage a trois? A quatre? Cinq, six, sept?

I was coming to understand that when you went for the best women you never got anything at all. Love seemed so unreliable, so random, like picking flower petals and saying “she loves me, she loves me not,” or standing so long under mistletoe your feet cramped up, or desperately hoping some girl would pull the fruit loop off your shirt and ask you to go steady with her.

Every autumn for me is a mixed bag of whispers from the past. This memory is of the first make-out party I ever went to in sixth grade back in the 60’s, an excerpt from my memoir, Maybe Boomer, Chapter 10, “Girls.“