I had some "cool" friends who pretty much fit the Bart Simpson image. Patrick's older brother Matt was on the cross country team at the junior high. He was a good athlete who liked to smoke in the bathroom. He enjoyed throwing firecrackers at squirrels and pigeons, and starting small gasoline fires in his back yard to see what happened when you put different things into burning gasoline... Their neighborhood buddy Jimmy was good at Nintendo 64 games which he played at the Toys-R-Us down the street while munching on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups out of a fresh package he'd opened from the next aisle over.
Me? I kept a half dozen fish tanks in my bedroom and wrote articles for the local aquarium society's newsletter about breeding Siamese fighting fish. Yup, I was and always will be a dork. And I'm proud of that.
So what happened 20 years ago that kept me on the straight and narrow? It might have to do with all three of us (Mike, Liz, and I) sharing a hand-me-down newspaper route as kids. More accurately, it might have something to do with dad's addiction to reading that newspaper.
The newspaper was a central part of our lives growing up. We folded, bagged, and delivered 30 or so papers in the neighborhood on our bikes first thing in the morning, every morning. When each of us turned old enough to get our driving permit, dad would take us to do the route on Sundays and then let us practice in the mall parking lot, which was pretty much empty at 7 am. While mom clipped coupons and we spread cream cheese and jelly on the bagels we'd picked up on the way home, dad would read aloud whatever article piqued his interest as though the rest of us were as interested as he was. He'd always add his own editorial comments as he went along - "'...Cuomo's raising taxes again.' What a dirt bag! What a Schmuck!" Mom might be on the phone, Liz might be trying to focus on reading a book, or we might all be getting dressed for the 40 minute trip over to Aunt Liz and Uncle Rick's, but dad would be shouting the article at the top of his lungs by then, "can you believe this idiot?!" with us interjecting something like "Dad, we need to get ready to go, can we read the paper later in the car?" "I'm almost finished..." more reading... then "Listen to this bullshit!" and he'd continue on in his robe while we were on our way out the door...
There was no escape. When we went away to college, dad clipped the articles and sent them to us. Empty nest syndrome? I suppose so.
At a few bucks a week for ten years, I figure the paper would have cost the family a little over $1500. A low price considering the cost of cable TV (which was and still is crap), but we got the paper free on account of early morning child labor... hey, I didn't complain. In sixth grade I paid with my own $109 in cash for a Gameboy, thank you very much. Add to that the bonus of having extra papers on Sundays when the ads came out, and mom's coupon clipping probably saved us thousands more.
The paper route taught us responsibility. Maybe that was the problem with Patrick's brother and his friend Jimmy... Every kid should have a paper route.
Back to the point...
As he occasionally still does, earlier this week dad sent me an envelope filled with recent newspaper clippings. I always smile when I see his envelopes in the mailbox because I never know what to expect. This one was no exception, and I was completely caught off guard. The article it contained... well... like I said, it really hit home. "Thompson Gone but Homer Lives On..."
About the same time as I had the paper route, I was really into baseball. Dad always volunteered to coach my little league teams. He kept stats on all of us, and at the end of each season he'd present every player on the team with an honorary award certificate of some sort. Even the worst kid on the team, the one who was always picking dandelions in right field when he wasn't kicking piles of dirt while sitting on the bench for half the game, would get an award. I can see the smile on that kid John's face when he got it, too. His parents never came to see him play, but dad gave him a certificate that made him smile. 
My baseball career ended when I didn't make the school team in 7th grade. It was on account of trying too hard. I swung for the fence and missed the ball every time. If dad had his way I probably would have gotten the "Hardest Tryer Award." Mike had just graduated from Geneseo, and he was already on his fellowship at Georgetown, living in DC. For his graduation from Geneseo (which he'd finished in three years by the way, so yes, the trying hard gene is in the blood), mom and dad took us all to Windows on the World, the fancy restaurant in the city at the top of the World Trade Center. I had the shrimp. And it was damn good.
The Maitre D'it pointed out all of the bridges in the panoramic view of the city looking East towards Long Island. I was wearing a suit and tie, a very rare occasion indeed even to this day. And then dad overheard something from a nearby table... "Do you still have the bat?"
A few more clues revealed that the gentleman being asked the question was not only a baseball player, but probably the most famous one of all time. Dad leaned over to mom and I heard him whisper to her "...I'm sure of it."
Next thing I know, I'm standing with dad in front of this table of old men in suits, probably all drinking scotch. "I couldn't help but overhear you gentlemen, and I think I've pieced it together. You're Bobby Thompson. You're the man who hit the 'Shot heard 'round the world."
"I am indeed." He stood up. I really had no idea who this guy was. I just knew he'd played baseball and now he was old. "And who is this with you?""This is my son, Jamie. I coach his baseball team out on Long Island."
Bobby Thompson shook my hand. He called over the Maitre D'it and asked if we could use a menu for an autograph. He obliged, and Bobby Thompson wrote me a note on it, signing it "To James..." I thought about selling it back in 2001, but I still have it somewhere... It's worth more to me now than anyone else in the world.
The article dad sent me this week was about Bobby Thompson's passing. Mr. Thompson died in August at age 86. He recently took a fall and had been living his last years with his daughter in Georgia (a familiar story for me since it's pretty much what happened to my great uncle Joe... I've always told myself I'm making it at least to 86).
The famous "shot heard 'round the world" was Bobby Thompson's immortalizing moment on October 3, 1951. My dad was just four years old. It was the third game of a tied three-game series between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. With the Dodgers ahead 4 to 2 in the bottom of the 9th inning, one out and two men on base, Bobby Thompson took his first pitch, a strike. His next was it- the line drive over the left field fence that won the series and sent the Giants to the World Series. It was heroic. It was a miracle. It was his one claim to fame for the rest of his life, and an inspiration to countless people, myself included a generation and a half later.
The article quotes one of his teammates, Monte Irvin, explaining that after the game Thompson couldn't remember running the bases, but only the third base coach, Leo Durocher, telling him before his at bat "If you ever hit one, hit one now."
The lesson in all of this is that when opportunity knocks, you'd best be ready to answer the door. Bobby Thompson saw an opportunity and made happen what had to happen. He also shook my hand once because my dad saw that opportunity. I've always tried to take advantage of every opportunity I've been given, and now I have a better handle on how I came to be that way. Thanks, dad.
