PICK ME


 The man who used to be my husband and I raised our family in a beautiful suburb north of Detroit, Michigan. We have access to abundant natural resources here, especially the magnificent Great Lakes. Detroit gets a bad rap and deservedly so, but the city is beautifully situated on the Detroit River and has much to offer so we visit the city often. The buildings comprise a prized collection of art deco, neogothic and guilded age architecture. Cultural institutions such as the Michigan Opera Theatre, Orchestra Hall, the stunning Detroit Public Library, the Art Museum, and Old St. Mary's, in the heart of Greektown, are breathtaking. Nearby, the Lions' and Tigers' stadiums stand as proud bastions for thousands of loyal fans.
 While professional musicians in Detroit do fairly well financially, amateurs make a pretty decent living playing trombones in the streets. On the way into the main entrance to Tiger Stadium today, three black drummers played on three white overturned five gallon buckets. They played those buckets with mezmerizing effect, and their creativity and rhythmic energy filled the streets.
 What a day!
Amid the music and tiger-striped faces we made our way past the peanut sellers and into the stadium. A fresh breeze ushered the blue sky and puffy clouds into the space above the field and invited them to stay a while. We could hear the National Anthem, Motown-style making its way to our seats. The day before the game, my beautiful daughter received four tickets from a very nice coworker, and this made it possible for her, my handsome son, and the lovely woman with whom he is in a committed relationship, to attend.
We had all been apart for a while, and it felt good to be united  in a common cause: Tigers against the Chicago White Sox. Go Tigers!
 I would like to make that coworker The Cinnamon Rolls of Gratitude.
The Tigers won three-two at the bottom of the twelfth inning. My guy Prince Fielder was not at his best, but I have managed to forgive him and he and I can talk about that later. I have convinced myself that I know a thing or two about baseball wisdom. Surely Prince Fielder would like to hear about it.

I grew up in Port Angeles,Washington, a town of about 17,000. I attended Washington Elementary School on First and Vine Streets. In the summer, the Second Street kids banded together to play baseball on the empty lot across from the school. As long as it did not rain, those games went on for hours.
 First though, the leaders had to chose their teams. We lined up in front of each self-appointed captain who took turns picking kids one by one. There, it seemed to me, our value as human beings decreased exponentially as the diminishing line of players stood awkwardly in front of the two captains. At last, two leftover kids, hands in pockets, stared at the ground and rocked back and forth on their feet. Please pick me, please pick me, each one thought. Surely being the next-to-the-last-chosen person was infinitely more bearable than the Leftover Kid and not being chosen at all.
 Though I never was the last one chosen for baseball in that empty lot on Second Street, the fear that I would be, stayed with me. I felt sorry for the last- picked one.

SECOND STREET

  Grandma boarded the Greyhound bus, her four foot eleven stoic self clothed in her homemade small-printed flower house dress, although some of the stoicism may have shrunk her to four foot nine. In the bend of her elbow her handbag clung tightly to her side for safety, and her proper yet soft, black lace-up grandma shoes kept her balanced as she boarded the bus. She took it upon herself to journey the distance from White Salmon to Second Street and it was a big deal for her, for us. We needed her and she was coming.

  She came from wealth yet chose to marry a farmer. I wonder how her parents felt about that. And it had been a rough hoe. Grandpa was a hard man, mostly thorns, and she was soft and gentle. The woman knew how to love well and he could not, would not, for he did not possess the vocabulary for such things. But he possessed a work ethic and instilled it into his children and tried to provide for his family, although it had not gone that well. Grandma’s nature allowed her to put up with a lot in her life, and now that Grandpa had passed, she could save her dimes for bus rides. She lovingly tended her roses goodbye, and knew that they would wait patiently for  her return to that hilltop.Then she walked, smiling, to the bus station.

  I do wonder about her thoughts in those quiet moments on the bus. Perhaps she pondered her fine childhood so many years ago. She took dance and piano and achieved a high level of success in both, and she did well in her studies. She nearly received a full college scholarship but was beat out by a boy in a wheelchair. She was devastated and married Grandpa instead.

Then the children came along and she resigned her compliant self to the hard struggle for existence for the sake of her children.  

Surely there was some joy along the way, she thought. How she loved the icy, gurgling river of summer, into which glass jars of fresh milk were loaded for safe-keeping. The peaceful, relieved cows supervised, nodding over a wood fence.

In the afternoons, after the clouds lifted from Mount Adams, the sun warmed the huckleberry-laden meadows at its majestic base. The whole family picked and ate berries until their teeth turned purple and their buckets and bellies were filled. They lay in the grass and heard the elk bulls call each other in the distance.

In spite of the hardships, a person could not ask to live in a more beautiful place, and Grandma felt the joy of it as the bus pulled out of the station.

                                                                MORNING

                                 A bird outside my window sings a song

                                 The length of it is not for me to measure

                                 Yet I know it is indeed quite long

                                  Enough to give my spirit pleasure.

A picture of my home town Port Angeles, Washington