The Old Ball Game

I've always been a baseball fan, I played in little league and in high school, the movie "Field of Dreams" still chokes me up at the end...
"oh yes, they'll come, Ray!..."
I went to my first game when I was 5 years old, the Giants vs. St. Louis at Candlestick Park. My mom and her friend took me along. I don't remember every detail, but it was a weekday game, and my mom's bowling league friend Jo Crane drove in the T-Bird that she owned at the time, but would later sell to my parents.
Candlestick was an open end stadium at the time, and it was cold and windy, but the crowd was enthusiastic because the Giants were in the World Series the season before, but they lost to the Yankees in Game 7. My mom was a huge Giants fan, and still is!
I remember bouncing on her knee when the stadium organist would play the 'mexican hat dance'...la-la-la-LA-la-la-CLAP-CLAP...
"oh look! see Danny? there's Willie Mays!"
Well the Giants lost that day, because all I remember Jo Crane saying on the way home was, "wellll, you can't win 'em all..."

Fast forward to 1968 when a new team moved to Oakland, from Kansas City...the Oakland A's!
Living in San Jose at the time, the Oakland Coliseum was much closer so we went to some of those games, and then the A's got good...they won three World Series in a row and by god they became my heroes when I was growing up! I was in junior high and what better time to choose and assign heroes when you're that age...I chose the Oakland A's.
And I've been a fan ever since. Though not as much 'heroes' now, but simply a fan.
It's hard to explain being a "fan"...it derives from the word 'fanatic' which makes sense in some cases, but for me it represents a kind of continuity, or an institution in which you can remain loyal. Year after year...but it's a safe kind of loyalty, where the only betrayal is losing a game...when there will always be tomorrow's game. (other kinds of betrayals notwithstanding, like the 1919 White Sox, steroids, etc...)

But I'm a casual fan, certainly not one of those intense fans who dress up in gaudy outfits for every game, or decorate their homes with shrines to their ballclub. I remember meeting one fan like that, Marge Wallace, but she was an eccentric, bless her heart...

From about 1983 to 1993, I lived in the East Bay, very close to the Oakland Coliseum, therefore, I went to tons of A's games, sometimes up to 40 games a season, and I would mostly sit in the bleachers back then, usually in the same spot, this was back when they were 'real' bleachers made out of wood...and season after season, I recognized the same people who would come too, and sit in their regular spots....a father who brought his young 3 year old daughter, she would sit on his shoulders until she got tired and would take a nap...a young family and their blue ice chest full of the tastiest looking sandwiches and treats, you could tell she had prepared them all morning...the group of college aged yahoos who sat down near the fence, the ringleader was a blond girl always in her bikini top, reveling in the attention...and sure enough, when the A's were in the playoffs, the camera's zoomed in on her on national TV...
There was also one guy who intrigued me...a solitary black man who looked 'hard' and sullen, but he would be there every weekend. I always wondered what his personal story was, you can't help but wonder about anyone's personal story, especially in an environment that is ideal for people-watching...One day between innings, the PA was blasting "Soul Man" by the Blues Brothers, and these two kids started dancing in the aisle, they were good! One kid was doing Michael Jackson moves and the other looked like Opie Taylor but he was holding his own...they were entertaining the entire section and as they all laughed and clapped, I glanced over at the sullen black guy, he was grinning for the first time...and I grinned with him...
Such are the many scenes of going to games...not just on the field, but in the crowd...I'm still thrilled to have seen Nolan Ryan pitch his no-hitter, I saw guys like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax...I saw that guy's little girl in the bleachers grow up to be a teen...year after year there in the bleachers...
"People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come." - Field of Dreams

Walter Cronkite

This evening I heard the news of the death of Walter Cronkite, and like any famous person's passing, there was the immediate, 'oh wow'...but unlike other recent passings, such as Michael Jackson, surely an event in itself...this one has seemed to sink in deeper and deeper.
With each CNN tribute I watch, I come to realize that Cronkite was not just a TV news anchor, but an institution, a living historical landmark. An institution in the sense, that at 92, he was part of a generation that represented America at its zenith, the 'greatest generation', and he was their spokesman. A grandfatherly figure who was unbiased, neither conservative nor liberal...only fair, and honest...and quintessentially American.
When I was little, my parents always watched the evening news, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, and of course Walter Cronkite...I would sit with my mom, she'd be riveted to the news, I would say something and she'd give me a curt nod as if to say, "yes yes, just hush, I'm watching the news..."
I have a vague recollection of the JFK assasination, Cronkite kept taking his glasses off and putting them back on as he reported...seeing that again years later, you could tell he was clearly distraught, but his demeanor was steady and with a certain dignity.
His call sign was, "and that's the way it is..." And, like a true journalist he called it like he saw it. In 1968, he said Vietnam was a quagmire of a war, and the American people saw it too...
It was later, July 20, 1969 to be exact...which just so happens to be 40 years ago this Monday! that Apollo 11 landed men on the Moon, perhaps the biggest engineering achievement ever accomplished by mankind...maybe that's what makes this so poignant, because I never saw such a sense of pride in Walter Cronkite reporting it then...I look back at the time when he was in the booth, a time when America had the capability to send men to the moon, fight a war with 500,000 men overseas year after year, build cars with V8 engines when the speed limit was 70, it all seems a world away now.
Walter represented for me that old school, and when the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, not only was he proud to be an American, he was proud of the Human Race, and so was I...

Come Fly With Me!

Down here in the hot Central Valley, I've noticed a certain phenomenon, Vapor Trails! ...commercial jets that fly back and forth, to and fro, north, south, east and west...they are all over the sky! Also military jets from nearby Lemoore Naval Air Station. It's funny how I've become such a sky watcher lately...maybe because not much happens down around here on the ground as in the sky, and it IS interesting to watch! It's 'planespotting'....

Because of the hot air down here, there seems to be a constant inversion layer of cold freezing air up above 30,000 feet, so when planes fly through it, the CO2 from their jet exhaust immediately freezes upon hitting the atmosphere, literally leaving a trail of ice...their vapor trails

Then they dissipate into basically clouds.

On some days, it's amazing to watch as many as 4 or 5 planes at any given time. Mostly they fly north/south, on the SF to LA corridor, one of the most busy air traffic corridors in the world, and I have a 'front row seat' from the ground anyway...

Other flights are in a southeasterly direction, the ones right overhead are probably bound for Las Vegas or Phoenix.

I have a dear friend Shawn who flies to Dallas, and I say, "I'll watch for you!" and indeed, her plane's trajectory takes her over Yosemite, and I swear I've seen her vapor trail...and I wave...

I should wave at all of them, because in each of those vapor trails, there's a plane that's carrying 100 to 300 souls on board, each with their own story. Not just the story of where they're going, but an entire life story, part of which is why they are on that plane at that moment.

Many fly on business, of course, some are off on a fun vacation, some may be flying to a funeral...or a wedding...each passenger's story is different. And they're all up there, in a vapor trail...

I'll never forget being at the Oakland Airport in 1987, my friend Mike was getting married, and me and Rory were flying down for the wedding, we were all college friends.

So we were at the bar and Rory said, "hey, look over there!"

A couple was arguing, a woman was holding a 2 year old kid and her husband (or boyfriend) were in a heated discussion. We couldn't hear anything because of the glass walls that surround the bar at the oakland airport...but we stared...it was obvious the couple was separating and the woman was leaving with the kid, and the man was arguing, pleading...begging! that they not go...passersby would stare and they retreated to a less visible place as they continued their debate/argument...Rory and I watched as if riveted to a soap opera.

Soon all three were crying, then the man wanted to hug his son for the last time, and as he did, the look on his face was heartbreaking...loss, regret, mostly grief...the wife was crying too, it was obvious this was not something she would have wanted.

As they left, the argument became heated again, and they were shouting at each other, pointing fingers, as security guys approached she just left for gate, and the man stood and watched them leave, the look on his face... just despair.

We watched this whole thing speechless, then Rory said, "Jeeezus, that's a bummer!"

and I felt sorry for those folks, she was getting on her plane, a vapor trail to who knows where...

That was just one plane, but there's a ton of other flights that carry more joyful passengers, like the flight I would take to Phoenix every March, during Spring Training in Arizona...nearly every passenger in line wore a baseball cap, whether it be Giants, A's, Angels, Cubs, Padres, Dodgers, it's almost like a party plane, where fans swap stories of baseball as long as the drink coupons they can use on a 90 minute flight hold out...I loved those flights, ours was a vapor trail of fun...

And then there's the long distance flights, the vapor trails that cross over oceans and continents, the ones that bring us to foreign shores and vice versa...

Those occur each day, and no one can forget the disaster of 9/11...the audacity of such a terrorist attack will never be forgotten...

In that sense, I'll never forget the flight from SFO to London, on British Airways in 1982...I had just graduated from college and was on my way to Europe for an extended vacation/tour/life education...my hair was long at the time and I had a certain 'swarthy' appearance.

In the long 11 hour flight I got up to go to the bathroom...as I returned to my seat in the darkness, a steward stepped right in front of me, blocking my way "Where do you wish to go, sir?"

I immediately understood...the British are good about being on the lookout for terrorists...the IRA and all that, and probably, to their eyes, I Looked like one of those damn arab terrorists!

So in my best American News Anchor accent, I said, "oh, sorry I'm seated at row 22, Seat number 4"

"ah! this way sir."

And all of that happened when we were vapor trails in the air...don't get me started on the flight from Tulsa, when I was sandwiched in the middle seat...

I look up and I can't wait to leave a vapor trail again...and I will...

All of us, just vapor trails in the air, anyone at any time.