Go Like Sixty

I never played catch with my sons. I’ll pause here to let that put a tear in your eye. When each of them was five, they tried T-ball but were bored silly. Besides, you can’t have a catch with a five year old. Soon we all got into AYSO, so goodbye baseball, hello football . . . okay, hello soccer. When they got older I tried to initiate this hallowed father and son ritual, but discovered to my horror that Ari, best athlete in the family, throws like a girl. I am so embarrassed about that, but Zach seems to enjoy his older brother’s affliction, and a younger brother needs that sort of thing to level the playing field, so I let it go, and decided not to go through with the paternity test. See, my father and I played catch, and those memories, as they are with most American men, are some of my most cherished ones. I had hoped to make some more with my sons, but . . .

He was in his fifties, my father, when I was about eleven, but we would go out in the street in front of our house and he would throw me flies and grounders until I was tired and then we would end it by just tossing it back and forth. We’d throw it with that easy swinging motion that we copied, he from Dimaggio, me from Mantle. When we were really into it, we moved in unison like ocean waves coming in and going out. Rock forward as you throw the ball, and as you were rocking back, the other person would rock forward and return the ball to you. It was a most graceful ballet, performed in the cool of twilight, until it was too dark to see the ball.

I’m in my 60th year. I’ll complete it on the last day of June, 2005. Now, my family never made much of birthdays past childhood, but Tina’s family did. I admit I kind of grew to like that. Parties and presents good and bad, and all for one slightly embarrassed person. Unfortunately my two sons have taken after my family in that regard. We don’t have parties, and gifts usually consist of money changing hands. (That’s from me to them. There may come a time when they feel that they’d like to slip the old man a few bucks, but unless it had five or six zeros in it, I hope it never comes to that.)

Lest you think I was a complete dolt, I did buy and build 30 presents for Tina’s birthday of the same age, and when she turned 50 I threw a big time country and western party catered by El Cholo, complete with Margaritas. I still remember her smiles and laughter. Tina had a great smile that was all teeth and gums and squinty eyes. Freckles too. She had so many freckles that they ran together, almost like a tan. A friend in college once asked her if her breasts were freckled too. They were, but at that point who was looking at freckles? She still has all four – smile, freckles, and breasts. But I digress.

As I come to that age when the certainty of my next birthday is a diminishing probability, I’m starting to think about making the most of the most significant ones. Sixty is one big significant. It’s that line that separates the men from the old. It’s that age past which when you hear of someone’s unexpected demise you no longer think, “Ah, he was too young to go.” You start saying things like, “Well, at least he led a full life,” or “That’s the way I’d like to go, while I still have my wits.” There’s another saying like that but I can’t remember it. Please understand that I am not obsessed with death, just becoming aware that I am much closer to the end of my life than to the beginning. There is nothing middle about this age I’m at. But I digress . . . again. I think senility is when all your digressions jump in a big dog pile.

I’m going to celebrate my 60th birthday my way, and this is how I’m going to do it. I’ll take a trip with my two sons by motorcycle. That will be sweet. They both ride, but everyone worries about Zach’s coordination in this area, especially Zach. So I will be on one of my bikes and Ari with be on the other, with Zach as pillion (that’s English bike lingo for passenger) behind whomever he thinks will be less likely to kill him. I’d like to go to the Grand Canyon. Never have seen it, and I don’t think they have either, and it seems like a perfect setting for a significant passage. On the way there and back, we’ll do all kinds of grown up guy things – eat big steaks, drink cold beer, and smoke some fine cigars at a bar with an old coin operated pool table, with a worn cloth and bent cue sticks. And we’ll laugh all night. Then we’ll wake up at the crack of noon to hit the road again. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

But maybe it won’t quite work out that way – no motorcycles, no Grand Canyon. Remember, as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.” So here’s my other, other plan. We’ll have a great dinner on my birthday eve, with family and friends, and good food and drink. Where? El Cholo, of course -- the one on Western, not the one in Santa Monica that my friend, Pam, describes as a Swiss Mexican restaurant. Since her boys will be there, I’ll invite Tina, along with her boyfriend, Steve. She’ll be smiling that smile of hers at the boys, and I’ll be smiling at her, but I’ll look away before she catches me.

After dinner, Ari, Zach, and I will say our goodbyes, and we’ll go find an all night bar with a pool table and pretend we’re on the road. Yeah, we’ll be on our way to the Grand Canyon with plenty of beer, cigars and quarters for the table. I can see us now, and I can hear our laughing, loud and out of control, full of careless joy. Then after an early breakfast at the Pantry Cafe on my birthday morning, I’ll drive us to a park in Santa Monica. I’ll open the trunk and take out three newly oiled Rawlings baseball gloves, each perfectly broken in, with a brand new ball in its pocket, tied up with string. I’ll untie each one and remove the ball, and watch as my sons marvel at how the glove now holds the ball shape, and at their father who knows still how to make the magic happen.

Then we’ll spread out in a triangle pattern and we’ll toss a ball around. From me to Ari, then back to me, then to Zach and back to me, then to Ari, back to Grandpa, to me, to Ari, to Zach. Tinker, to Evers, to Gramps. The connection of fathers to sons, fathers to fathers, and fathers to fathers to be. And everything will be beautiful and everything will be as it never really was. And I’ll pause, holding the ball, to look at a nearby tree. “Hey Dad, what’s wrong?” And there will be Tina, sitting in the broad shade of an oak tree, her hair, dark before time stole its color, blending into the sunless pool, framing her face, brilliant with a glow from a light that has always been hers alone. She’ll be on reclining on one arm on a blue blanket with a basket of snacks and drinks, waiting for the game to end, and for us to return to her. The air will be crisp and clean, like after a rain, and I will inhale till all that is around me goes deep inside and I will keep it there till I burst. Tina will smile then -- smile at her boys. “Nothing, Zach. Everything’s okay now.” And then she’ll turn that radiant smile on me, and this time, I won’t look away.

(I wrote this piece about a year and a half ago. I'm still catching you up with older stories, but I think I'll mix in a new one in my next post. Stay tuned.)