15 Years Later

Think of the word, ‘favorite.’  I’ll bet you go to a place where the negative things about being an adult disappear and the best parts of life embrace you.  You generally have a favorite meal.  A favorite moment with some of your friends.  A favorite song from your favorite artist and a favorite line from your favorite movie.  Odds are good that you have a favorite person from your childhood.  Or at least I hope that you do.  I hope you’re thinking of them right now and smiling. 

Mine was my grandfather. 

He called me his little buddy.  He would take me anywhere he was going, often bragging about the many things that I would do.  And I would tag along happily.  He was there at every major moment of my young life.  But when referring to me by name, he didn’t call me Tim or Timmy like everyone else.

He called me Timbo. 

I’ve never been comfortable with anyone else using that nickname.  Only him.  He was my buddy from the first moment of my life.  My grandfather.  Grandpa. 

My grandfather taught me many things in our time together.  How to cast an open reel from a moving boat.  How to laugh at yourself for doing something stupid.  How to look someone in the eye and shake their hand with a proper grip.  Why you should hold a door open for another person.  Even how to swear like a truck driver.  But most important to our story, after I looked clumsy trying to hit a ball off a tee, he taught me how to play the game of baseball.

Grandpa.

The house my mother grew up in no longer exists as a building that people could live in.  It’s a ruined shadow of its former vibrancy.  It’s a one-story structure in a forgotten part of Detroit that doesn’t even warrant a sign that says “condemned.”  

But I opened Christmas presents there.  My brother and sister and I loved that and will never forget it.  That would have been in the living room that’s closest to the front door.

But now, this house is missing a front door and just leans toward its inevitable collapse.  I’ve watched its steady decline over the years by entering the address in Google Maps from 400 miles away. 

That house is a part of my childhood that I cannot revisit.  This happens in life.  For all possible nostalgic purposes, it’s gone.

But in my mind’s eye, I still see every square foot of that house as it was decades ago.  Yellow as the center of a daisy.  A well-kept lilac bush just behind the brick path in the back yard.  A screen door is all that exists between the driveway and a hug from Grandma when you get there.

Any time I want I can run from that driveway straight through that side door and hug my grandmother.  That would be in the kitchen.  And I can see Grandpa standing in the next doorway.  I can run up and hug him too.  Me on tiny little legs with a big goofy smile. 

I can walk into the hallway that leads away from that kitchen and see Grandma’s 1960’s electric organ.  That’s where I started to learn how to play.  Some of the things I can see sitting in that loving place have made their way into my house as my grandparents are long gone.  And as I said, that house will never be a home again. 

But walk back out of that side door with me for a second.  Hear the screen door as it shuts.  Go the seven or eight steps to the unattached garage at the end of the driveway and you will find a place where a grandson loved to go.  There’s a train set in that garage that runs through an entire mini village including whistles, bridges, tunnels and buildings.  You can run the trains and the whistles if you want.  You just have to learn the rules first.

There is a set of jarts by the door that you can play with, but only if grownups are around to watch.   Because you could really hurt yourself.  If you don’t know what they are, look them up.  Death spikes. 

Most importantly, there is a young boy’s favorite cabinet on the inside wall of that garage that’s closest to the house.  It has a curved silver handle that’s been worn with time.  You can imagine putting your first three fingers through the handle and pulling hard enough for the magnet to let go.  It makes a familiar “pop” sound when it opens that makes you smile…

In that cabinet you will find a red duffel bag with white trim.  If you close your eyes and try really hard, you can smell the leather.  Because inside that bag is a well-oiled catcher’s mitt, a first baseman’s mitt and a fielder’s glove.  They are all older than you are.  Breathe deep and you can definitely smell the leather and oil of those gloves.  Also in this bag are baseballs and softballs for playing catch.  Orange baseballs and yellow softballs.  You NEVER hit these with a bat.  These are only for playing catch.

There is a strip of lawn between the driveway and the house.  It’s probably only 10 feet wide or so, but it runs the entire length of the driveway to the street.  As the house is set back off the street a bit, it stretches about 3 or 4 car lengths. 

It would be on this strip of lawn that my grandfather would teach me how to throw.  How to catch.  How to pitch.  How to play the catcher position and how to play 1^st base.  And ultimately, how to love the game. 

Just a simple patch of grass in the middle of Detroit.  More weeds now than lawn.  I’ve done so much since then and complicated the hell out of my life chasing dreams and enthusiasms, but this, this was a simpler time. 

All you had to do was keep your eye on the ball when you catch and follow through when you throw.  On days when grandpa wore the catcher’s mitt and you threw hard enough to make it pop, he gave you a look like you were really something.  This was a magical place.

Later, he would coach my little league teams.  He was pretty fair.  I remember him walking out and taking me out of the game when I didn’t have it.  I had to hand over the ball and leave the pitcher’s mound.  I hated it.

But when I did have it, I could tell how proud he was of his little buddy. 

Later still, after he had retired, they moved four hours north to the forests and lakes of northern Michigan.  That’s where he showed me how to fish.  We went for rides looking for deer or wild turkeys.  These are things you would never see or do in the city where I grew up.  Grandma would join us later for dinner and life was beautiful. 

But even then, as I was getting to be a teenager, we still found time to get the gloves out of that bag and play some catch.  The bag was in a new cabinet in a new garage but everything else was pretty much the same. 

I was now as tall as he was, but he still called me Timbo or his little buddy.  And I could really make that catcher’s mitt pop.  He couldn’t play catch for quite as long.  But when we were done and walking back toward the garage, he would always throw his arm around my neck in a strong headlock and say, “You still got it buddy.” 

I loved it.  At the end of those summer afternoons we would find a game on TV and have a Pepsi while watching together.  Glass bottles of Pepsi.  High fives for home runs.  Smiles for big strike outs.  A grandfather and grandson having the best time in northern Michigan. 

He and Grandma made the four-hour drive south to Detroit to stand tall and proud and watch me graduate high school.  I was about to be off to college to the delight of my mother and father to become an engineer (but we all know how that worked out). 

Once the graduation ceremony was over and we were back home, he said to me, “You’re in a different world now, buddy.  You don’t know it yet, but you are.” 

I’ve thought about that statement many times over the years.  I’ll never forget it because it’s the last real conversation we had.   He was gone a month later while I was away at college.  My buddy, like the end of a baseball season, had faded away.  Grandpa.

We watched many games together on TV in 1984 when the Tigers won the World Series.  Went to a couple too.  Laughing, cheering and giving high fives.  We bought baseball cards together.  We won many games as coach and player.  And it seems like we played a thousand games of catch.  Always with an orange baseball that you NEVER hit with a bat. 

This for me is story filled with love.  Love of a grandfather.  Love of a grandson.  And without question…love for the game of baseball. 

As I close in on the end of this tour of all of these baseball stadiums, I do think my grandfather would enjoy hearing about it.  He was gone before it started.

I’m very sure that he’d love to hear about the stadiums and the plays.  The drama of game-winning home runs or game-saving strikeouts.  We’d open a couple of glass bottles of Pepsi and talk it over for a while.  If it was the right night, we’d find a game on TV.  And maybe, just maybe, there’d be enough sunlight to get in a game of catch.

If I could right now, I’d give him my best fastball and make that catcher’s mitt pop.  If for nothing else, to have him give me that look and say, “You still got it, buddy”

When I get to that last stadium and complete this tour, I’ll probably take a moment when no one’s looking.  I’ll think of he and I going to games together back in the day.  I’ll go back to being on that tiny strip of grass that’s now overgrown.  I’ll imagine myself being pulled into a loving headlock.  I’ll remember throwing an orange baseball as hard as I can with him giving me a strike zone target with that catcher’s glove.  And I’ll think of one word. 

Timbo.