Saturday, April 13, 2024
A Day of Days
Saturday, March 30, 2024
For Every Season
One of the coolest things about watching JP play baseball on MBA's JV team this season has been running into so many of his Dodgers' teammates on other teams. We've seen Cyrus, Riley, Wes, Elijah, and Benton. Of course, he plays with Winn, J.D., and Ethan. All Dodgers at one time or another, which is really, really cool.
I take so much pride in watching those boys - my boys - play baseball in high school. The entire experience of running the Dodgers and coaching those boys for nine years, fall and spring, in WNSL, all-stars, and the occasional tournament was life changing and transformative for me. The boys, my assistant coaches (whom I miss seeing regularly), the parents, the grandparents. All of it. The best days of my life as a father have been spent on baseball fields with JP, Joe, and their teammates.
JP, batting leadoff for MBA this season, already has batted against Cyrus (Hillsboro), Wes (David Lipscomb), and yesterday, Benton (Ensworth). Watching my son in the batter's box, batting against boys he has known and played with since he was five years old is tremendously special.
When Benton struck JP out with a curve ball in yesterday's game - a 7 - 5 - MBA win - I couldn't help but smile a little bit. After the game, Benton told me the curve ball was a birthday present for JP. Classic Benton. I was smiling a bit wider, though, when JP lined a 2-strike single into left field against an Ensworth relief pitcher to plate the go ahead run for the Big Red. He was due.
Although it drives JP crazy, I think, I've been walking on to the baseball field after games to take photos of my Dodgers together. I can't help myself. Our Dodgers parents' group loves it when I circulate the post-game photos on a group text.
When I walked on to Ensworth's field yesterday after the game, I met Benton walking in with a teammate from right field. As I hugged him, I marveled at the fact that he's taller and bigger than me now, his long, blond hair past his shoulders, as always. My guy, almost grown up.
"Benton, I'm so proud of you," I said, my voice choked with emotion. "You pitched a great game."
"Thanks, Coach," he replied.
Benton had the sweet, teenage awkwardness about him, unsure of how to react in what was a bit of an emotional moment for both of us as we stood together on the Ensworth High School baseball field in the dying sunlight of a beautiful fall evening. In that moment, I was overwhelmed with a flood of baseball memories, with Benton and JP in the middle of almost all of them.
"Coach."
That word means everything to me. I've gotten out of the mindset of seeing myself as a coach as the boys have gotten older and are coached by other, so it was nice to hear him say it. For so long, coaching baseball was my identity. It was how I saw myself, first and foremost.
I started coaching Benton when he was five, maybe six years old, so I've watched him grow up. I've been there through his successes and failures on the baseball field, through struggles and moments of triumph. I've had a front seat to all of it. The best seat, really.
I think what I've loved about Benton over all of these years together is that he's a lot like me. Stubborn. Competitive. Confident. Emotional. Sly sense of humor. Tough but with a heart as pure as gold when it comes to his friends and family.
Benton's always been a bit of a gunslinger and I've loved that about him. He's a quiet leader and he instilled confidence in his Dodgers' teammates, always, with his demeanor on the mound and his confidence at the plate. I could see that's still the case during and after the MBA-Ensworth game in the way his teammates interacted with him.
From a very young age, Benton has been serious about baseball. I can remember when the boys were young, really young, playing coach pitch baseball on fields four and five at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ. While the other Dodgers were running around before a game, acting like five or six year olds act, Benton quietly put his baseball gear in the dugout. He was the first boy to learn how to keep up with his own gear. He always stacked it neatly in the dugout in between at bats or going out to the field to play defense. While other boys were rummaging through the dugout, looking for their hats or gloves, Benton was always ready to go.
I thought to myself then, so many years ago, that this one is a baseball player. This quiet, serious, respectful, blond haired boy is a baseball player.
And you know what? I was right.
Benton is a baseball player. A damn good one.
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Sweet 16
When I woke up this morning, I was the father of a 16 year old son.
How did it happen?
To quote Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises, "Gradually, then suddenly."
That quote perfect describes how I feel about JP turning 16 years old today. It seemed like his childhood would last forever and that I would be the father of a young boy forever but as it turns out, that's not how it works. It seems like yesterday that I planned my Saturdays and Sundays around our morning or afternoon strolls around the neighborhood, as often as not ending up at Bongo Java for coffee. Today, he's driving.
"Gradually, then suddenly."
Last night, our friend, Kim, had to go to the emergency room and went there to be with her because her husband, Hal, is out of town. When I got home, JP was just going to bed. Jude, laughing, told me later that all night long, JP was practically bouncing off the walls in anticipation of turning 16. He's such an even keeled kid. Never too up or too down. For him to get so excited about something and to show that excitement is out of character for him but very cool, too.
This morning, asked him if he wanted to drive to school. He said he wanted to ride, so he could relax and think about his day. I think he wanted to contemplate what it means to be 16 and how things are going to be changing in a very real way, very soon. And, too, how they will never be the same. The truth of the matter, of course, is that they won't be.
When I turned 16, I was overwhelmed with a profound feeling of freedom and independence. I would never have to rely on someone else to drive me somewhere. Never again. I could drive myself to school, to work, or to a friend's house. I could drive to the beach or to California. I could drive to familiar places or to places I had never seen. Suddenly, the world was wide open to me, waiting expectantly for me to explore it.
I wonder if JP was feeling those things as I drove him to MBA today. Probably that and a whole lot more.
As I so often say, I don't know what I did to deserve a son like JP. He's a gift. I can't remember what my life was like without him.
16 is the big one, maybe the biggest one of all. Happy birthday, JP.
I'm proud of you and I love you.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
It's Hard to Begin to Let Go
I've been writing in this space for what seems like forever.
Why? Many reasons. To let others know how Jude's pregnancy with JP was going. To preserve a record for my boys of how I much I loved them when they were growing up and how much they enriched my life in ways small and large. To give my mom something to look forward to as her health began to fade. To try to work out my thoughts and feelings as I watched my mom drift away, stolen by Alzheimer's, and finally, leave me to fend for myself on this earth. To help me, years from now, remember what it was like to be a father of young and growing boys.
Most of all, I think, The Stork Stops Here is a love letter to JP and Joe.
My sons are my world. They are why I get up in the morning and go to work and why I stay late. I can deal with the stress of my job because I am doing it to provide them with the life they have. I work late sometimes, and miss things, to continue to build and maintain a successful career so I can be the provider I need to be. I run, in many ways, for them. I want to try to maintain my health and youth for them, because I became a father relatively late in life.
Now, though, I find myself in the earlier stages of imagining a life without JP and Joe in it every day. How will I be able to do that when the time comes?
How will I be able to say goodbye and watch them go out in the world to live their own lives? I don't know if I can do it.
Later this week, six days from now, JP will turn 16 and get his driver's license. How can the boy I strolled around 12South and Belmont in the Baby Jogger City Elite be on the cusp of driving himself all over Nashville? How?
Just yesterday, or so it seems, I was strolling him down 10th Avenue - on what might have been our very first walk in the old neighborhood together - when neighborhood handyman Ronnie Henderson drove by, saw me, and waved. Later, laughing, he told me I was beaming with the pride of being a first time father as JP and I strolled down the street. He was right.
JP's ready to drive. That's for sure. He's long since logged in the required hours driving with a learner's permit, mostly by driving with Jude. He's taken the dull but necessary eight week long defensive driver's class and driven with an instructor. Think driver's education classes in the old days. A few weeks ago, he took and passed the driver's test. All that awaits is for him to pick up his Tennessee driver's license on Thursday.
The problem, of course, is that I'm not sure I'm ready for him to drive.
A large part of my fear is that I can recall all of the stupid things I did as a young driver. Speeding. Driving recklessly at times. Listening to all kinds of music, loudly, on the Jensen triaxial speakers in my '66 Ford Mustang. Drinking beer, then driving. All of it. It's a wonder I survived unscathed.
JP is a different kid than I was at 16. That's what I tell myself, anyway. I don't think he will take the chances I took as a young driver. With all of my heart, I hope he won't, anyway.
This is one of those times when being a control freak and averse to change is not helpful. I have no choice but to trust JP and have faith that he will be a careful driver. That he won't take unnecessary risks, like I did. That he won't drink and drive, like I did. That he won't drive and text or talk on his cellular telephone, like I do. That he won't race a train across the tracks on the way to a job loading and loading tractor trailers after his freshman year of college, like I did.
Most importantly, I have to have faith that God will watch over him, protect him from other drivers, and keep him safe. And He will. I know that.
Still, this feels like the beginning of a long goodbye, first to JP, and then to Joe. From the first sleep away camps at 10 or 11 to driving to, finally, college.
I don't think I'm ready for that, not by a long shot.
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Saying Goodbye to Santa Rosa Beach
Back to reality.
Following a nine hour drive in a lot of construction related traffic on I-65, we arrived home last night a little after 6 p.m. It was, needless to say, a long drive made shorter, however, by JP driving the first two and a half hours. He's a good, safe driver, and I was glad to get him some experience driving on a road trip, particularly since he will be getting his drivers license in less than two weeks.
Friday, our last day at the beach, Joe was especially vocal about not wanting to leave. Early Friday evening, Joe and I hung out at the beach together and threw the football while Jude and JP rode bicycles down to Blue Mountain Beach. It was overcast and most everyone else had left the beach for the day. It was nice to steal a few minutes on the beach with Joe, just to throw the football and enjoy each other's company.
I was thinking about how each member of my family gets something different out of a trip to Santa Rosa Beach, or so it seems to me. In truth, each of us probably needs something a little different from a week there, too. We actually talked about it a little bit at dinner Friday night at Basmati's.
For sure, Jude needs her morning walks on the beach, looking for seashells. I think she needs the solitude and the peacefulness. She needs to be at the beach at least once a year, I think, if for no other reason than to have those early morning walks on the beach. I think it recharges her batteries.
Joe loves spending time in the ocean, which he did on this trip every afternoon. Not a lot of people braved the cold temperature of the water, although Joe was one of the exceptions. He's so happy playing in the ocean's waves, with JP or by himself. He's like me, in a way, with his love of the ocean. Joe also loves - and I mean loves - to eat at different restaurants for lunch and/or dinner when we're in Santa Rosa Beach.
JP's a little harder to figure out, although I know he loves being in Santa Rosa Beach. Like me, he loves to go for runs almost every day we're there. He also loves to ride bicycles - traditional and the electric bicycles that he and I rented for the second year in a row. I know JP needs the break from school and academic intensity that is MBA. Unwinding time is important for him, too.
For me, I like the feeling of familiarity that I get from staying in Old Florida Village in Santa Rosa Beach. It brings me comfort. I know what to expect. No surprises. Of course, I love - love - having the time to run almost every day. l love having the Longleaf Greenway Trail a half mile away, so much so that I ran on it three days during out stay. I love having time to read and watch movies. I also love bumping into residents and guests staying in Old Florida Village and striking up a conversation with them.
Being home again is nice but I already miss the beach.