Baseball, Sep 5

Burt introduced me to baseball. I did know it existed of course, but did not appreciate the beauty of a double play until he explained it at the ballpark.

There are many myths about the origins of the American pastime. 

One is that Pittsfield Invented Baseball. It’s a long story and I will present you with a digest of it but Pittsfield did not invent baseball anymore than Abner Doubleday  did.

Baseball evolved from Cricket and Rounders. British sports.

What Pittsfield did do was protect the windows of its newly built town hall from balls hurled within 80 yards.

The ordinance banning cricket or baseball or bat ball etc from the grounds of the meeting hall was dated September 5, 1791. Early days in baseball history.

For the record, it appears that baseball was not invented in Cooperstown either. As I said, baseball evolved.

Pittsfield has a baseball stadium and at one time it was home to a Triple A Mets farm team. Burt did take me to see a couple of games there.

Sitting in the sun

Yesterday, I was thinking about what it would be like spending the afternoon on a river- facing bench across the 78th Street bridge.

These were late night thoughts and late night sadnesses.

There was sadness in the thought; I couldn’t do so without missing Burt who frequently sat with me on that bench.

It had been our happy place for so many happy years.

The memories are of blissful times, yet I cannot imagine taking my spot by the river without him.

On the side

Things happen as we get engrossed and distracted by caregiving. I managed to misplace (a polite way to say lose) our marriage certificate. I feel a lot better about it since Googling that replacement can be done easily and online. Looking for the missing item also gave me an opportunity to sort through documents. The rearrangement […]

On the side
The Ketubeh

In the papers

How did you meet your significant other?

Not in the funny papers as my comic id wants to say, but in NY Press, a printed news sheet. It was free, found in little boxes around town. The meet your mate or date section was also free. In short, I answered Burt’s personal ad.

He called (my office), we chatted that Thursday and made a date (in a public place) for Friday.

All protocols followed.

An overly rouge-tinted photo from our wedding day.

Back to the “from before”

Here’s the story of the picture [L]  with the Blues Brothers vibe; I’ve shared this at length with A. who was curious about this photo in my pictorial. It’s a memory from the 2nd year that Burt and I were together. We were invited to  party for Judith E’s  birthday–who was married to Jim M, […]

Back to the “from before”

Good memories are what you want to keep both during the journey and when it’s ended.

This is a post in tribute to those.

Writing group

Focus on yourself.

Your loved one will never get short shrift under your watch. The gaze of self-care is usually a bit myopic.

Chances are that you will draw the shorter end of the stick as you walk the journey with your person. You will learn to advocate. You will be aware of signs and symptoms and quick to respond. It is very likely as well that you will ignore something about yourself.

Today, I asked a writers’ group to look at “what I am learning about me while I am giving care.“

The one point of self-care I stuck with was always to be sure I had some time for myself. Going to lunch with friends and the gym gave me a breather and it did make a huge difference. That may not be a lesson per se….

Burt’s on top of it

From August 2024

The “job search” seems to have ended in a mystery job. Mystery to me, at least, but it is vague to Burt as well. He wants me to get him business cards (albeit they’re round, as he describes them). He assigns numbers to his staff, and I am #1 tomorrow, then #2 the next day, […]

Burt’s on top of it

It’s enlightening when I read posts about the passages of our journey. I forgot about that time when Burt had a desire to find a job and its aftermath when he seemed to have found one.

Pictured

There was a box I had labeled pictures. It was an activity box I had put together for Burt.

Actually a box of memory for us to look at what life had been like, recently, and in our past. I opened it yesterday and left the albums out for me to peruse.

There we were on ballfields and river walks, all before Burt became ill. Two of the albums are of Burt  after the diagnosis; there are four with us in various poses. 

It doesn’t matter that I can’t say I remember the occasion on which we wore sombreros, while dressed in office attire.

So good to see us, together on the Brooklyn Bridge, in front of the 116 Street Target, in Princeton!

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started