Burning passion?

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. Yes, I am doing fine. I know that it has been a while since I have written. I would apologize but that would be disingenuous. An apology would suggest that I have intentionally done some wrong that requires some contrition. It is not wrong that I have done. It is the physical and emotional roadblock to writing during this season. A season that may have been done November 8. But given the election reaction, maybe the season is lingering; like a cold winter that drags on into mid-April. Maybe I am an election groundhog. I am coming out of my hibernation hole to provide my prognostication that this crazy will last another 6 weeks or maybe not. 

Either way, every topic that I have chosen and worked on in my head, partially composed, and prepared to commit to writing, would wind its way back to the election and how you are wrong and I am right during this season of malcontent. It has been my goal in writing this blog to stay away from how right I am and how wrong you are. Those who know me from my other non-blog life know that I can opine with the best of them. We had a saying, while we were selling organic produce at several farmers markets in a previous life; "opinions are like derrières; everybody has one and they mostly produce fertilizer." I know what your'e thinking. You are surprised that we were french speaking organic farmers. Truth be told; I was always saying pardon my french while standing in a 95 degree parking lot listening to a customer's opinion that french filet beans should be picked 1 millimeter shorter to maximize the sugar content. It was in these moments I would smile, nod my head exhibiting excellent listening skills, and think "everyone has one and this is nice smelling fertilizer."

I do hope that the efforts to remain even handed in writing these missives have been successful. It has been a goal since its beginning with Girls Gone Wild. 

It is hard to imagine that a little more than a fortnight ago, our country was united in cheering on the Cubs. Basking in the belief that no matter how pitiful you are, your time will come, and if management would simply open their pocket books for the fifth largest payroll in baseball, we too could mistakenly believe that the purity of sport could shine through and lovable losers could take their place on the podium for a few fleeting moments. Unless you were one of the 3.5 million or so from the greater Cleveland Metro area, plus the few expatriates that had moved on to other places, the country was all in for the Cubbies. The number of bleary eyed co-workers was legion every morning after all seven games.

The lovely Miss Beverly and I were watching one of the early games. Sitting on our couch, in the evening winding down from a big day of work, the lovely Miss Beverly suddenly said "I miss the days when you were passionate about baseball." It is true. I no longer care. I don't believe that I saw a single pitch after 8:30 p.m.; my bed time before my 4:19 wake up call. The lovely Miss Beverly, on the other hand, caught a bit of the bug and watched into the wee hours many of the seven games. I on the other hand was sound asleep with visions of sugarplums dancing in my cap covered head.

I have fallen vast distances from the burning of my previous passions. A fan of the Big Red Machine, I listened to Marty and Joe on "Reds Radio" every night while out in the barn breaking show steers to semi tameness for the 4-H fair. Joe Nuxhall with his slight lisp (however the lovely Miss Beverly would say moderate) would call the 3rd, 4th, and 7th innings. At 15, Joe was the youngest big league player ever. It was a fluke. World War 2 had depleted the bench of pitchers. Fluke or not, Joe was there, barely needing to shave, throwing heat to other fortunate young men who had not been called up to beat back the threat of world-wide fascism.

Joe's co-announcer, Marty Brenneman, would do most of the work calling the other innings with his deep melodious baritone filling the barnyard with the heroic feats of Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Dave Concepcion, George Foster, Ken Griffey (Senior not Junior) and of course Pete Rose. That voice filling the dusk settling barn yard as the fireflies would begin their evening light shows in late June and July was the only thing that made my torture of leading mildly psychotic 1200 pound steers around the barn yard, holding on for dear life lest of deer fly bite a heel and started a futile tug of war and a mad dash to corral the four hoofed victor.

I loved baseball. I wasn't very good at it. I was in that vast group of kids who played well enough to not do much harm and from time to stick a glove in the right general direction. I was a coaches dream; just good enough to play all of the time but not good enough to take the all star slot from some of the more obnoxious families in town. In spite of that level of mediocrity, I still loved baseball. I loved baseball so much that I planted Ash trees around the farm in my early twenties. I don't know. I think that I thought that by the time I was 50 I would cut down that tree, cure the wood, and turn bats on my lathe so that I could play with my own bat in the over 50 league. Who knows? 

Alas, the  emerald ash bore has infected and killed those three ash trees (two white and one green ash; yes I was going to experiment to find the finest ball hitting instrument.) As I said earlier, I don't care about baseball any longer. I do care about hot water for my bath and hot air for the winter nights. Yes, I cut those three trees into firewood and am enjoying the benefits of my labor in a warm house and a hot shower.

As the lovely Miss Beverly stated the obvious about my loss of affection towards our once national pastime, I was immediately transported to a college cafeteria in the early 80's. We were setting with a sociology professor who was pontificating about his chosen field of study. During his discourse he stated unequivocally that he knew there was no such thing as God or the Holy Spirit. He had proven this fact to himself through his studies. During graduate school, he had studied rural Pentecostals and their religious practices. On several occasions he had visited Appalachian Pentecostal churches. He had recorded their services. He had witnessed them in the "throws of the fire". In spite of the religious fervor all around him, he had felt nothing. His heart rate had not increased. His tongue had not been loosed. He felt no desire to grab a snake. And these lack of "signs" proved to him that there was no God and that people were not filled with the Holy Spirit.

I did not contradict him. It was not the time nor did I have a good enough grasp on debating technique. To say anything would have resulted in embarrassment and ridicule. And avoiding ridicule is something for which I did and still have great passion. This discussion was one of the lessons that I learned in college that stuck with me much longer than the calculus class. Through the lens of time, I could have said "well of course you didn't feel anything. You didn't believe. The holy spirit doesn't possess you against your will. It is invited in. And you don't believe. So you lose the experience."

Isn't that the way it is? I lost my belief in baseball. I don't believe that it is a game anymore. Two strikes for more money, shifting the stadium costs to the general public, and $40 parking has drained my belief. I had believed that every once in a while on a summer evening, I would see the ball as big as a grapefruit and I would hit a line drive back up the middle watching the pitcher's eyes get as big as saucers. I had believed that Charles (not Charley) Ritchie would stick his glove up in right field, where he was usually safely hidden for the required two innings a game, and catch the inning ending out. I had believed that an 0 - 8 team could win number 9 in 13 innings with the coach saying "Roger can you pitch? If it goes to 14, your'e going to have to pitch. I am out of pitchers."

Isn't that the way? We believe in one thing because of our experience with it and then the world grabs it at twists and manipulates it trying to make it felt by everyone. We have it upside down. Rather than letting individual experiences accumulate through community to become the general experience, we create a societal experience and try to make it, through twisting and manipulation of the individual, into the individual experience. It strikes me that the twisting and manipulation is corrosive. It eats at a person. For some the corrosion eats through quickly others, the more resilient, it takes a while but usually it eats through and the passion leaks away, leaving us empty. Until the next big thing.

What does it mean? I don't know. I just know that it happened.

Take Care.

Roger