TERRE HAUTE —
One of the gratifying things about getting older is that if we are lucky, we get to fulfill a few dreams. Chalk one up for me; I watched the Red Sox play in Fenway Park last month.
To the historically challenged among you — at least when it comes to baseball — Fenway sits on arguably the most hallowed ground in the game (yes, I have heard of Yankee Stadium, but it isn’t “The House That Ruth Built” anymore), particularly if you happen to be a Boston Red Sox fan, which I inexplicably have been since the sixth grade. That’s when my teacher dragged a portable black and white television into our classroom, wrapped a little aluminum foil around the antennas, and let us watch the day games of the 1967 World Series. Seeing that this story is the third installment of what I guess is my “New England Trilogy,” I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my adventures in mid-June at 4 Yawkey Way, Boston.
My family had come to Massachusetts for something not quite called a “working vacation.” I was there to partially fulfill the requirements of a grant that had already taken me just up the road to Concord to see where Henry David Thoreau had lived his life. That done, and knowing that my two kids are avid Red Sox fans, and that my wife quietly tolerates the three of us whooping it up in front of televised games, I knew we had to see for real the place Hall of Famer Tom Seaver calls “the essence of baseball.” We were in town as the Sox hosted the Arizona Diamondbacks.
We took no guided tours, which may have been a mistake, but seeing that we had other things to do downtown before the game, we knew that we would have just enough time to get to the bus that took us to the subway that took us to the spot where we could hoof it to the famous ballpark. We made it with plenty of time to spare, walking on air through Gate C to the aroma of dogs on the rotisserie, freshly popped popcorn and nearly $10-a-cup beer.
With that in mind, I have to digress for a moment: We found out that going to Boston is one thing — driving in Boston is something else. Downtown Boston driving resembles a real life-and-death version of “Frogger.” The city is more than 350 years old — which is about how long road crews have been working on their current re-paving projects — and it has to be one of the most confusing places in which to operate a motor vehicle on the planet, particularly for someone like me, who spends most of his driving time gazing across soybean fields.
Anticipating a rough experience prompted us to quickly get acquainted with mass transit, specifically the “T,” Boston’s efficient, moderately priced subway system. We stayed in Waltham, just outside Boston, so we drove about 10 minutes down I-95 to a T-station, parked our car, then rode the train into town. Had one merciful transit worker not filled us in on how to get what is called a “Charlie” card from the ticket kiosk and given us the Reader’s Digest condensed version of where to get on and off, we might still be wandering the parking lot there.
Our morning trips into Beantown, post-rush hour, were actually enjoyable; the subway cars were nearly vacant, the seats plentiful, the conversation easy. On the other hand, the trips back to our hotel in the evenings, particularly between 4 and 7 when Boston was emptying itself into its suburbs, helped us empathize with sardines. I now know why most T riders sit or stand emotionless, like store mannequins, staring off into space, listening for their monotone-recorded stops like automatons. It’s a real armpit and backside festival in those cars.
After being released from the subway on the evening of the game, we emerged from the underground to see the huge neon Citco billboard that is often on display during televised games. We were pushed along by a considerable crowd to a point where we found ourselves behind the famed “Green Monster” of Fenway. Street hawkers were selling “almost-official” game programs and “cheap” water, but we paid little attention to them. With our camera bags and awed faces, I think we all looked like innocents abroad at the pyramids of Giza, but we were far from alone in that regard.
After a relatively quick stroll through the “official” gift and shirt shops that surround Fenway — the typical price of a T-shirt involved giving up one’s first-born male child — we emerged onto the third-base side of the field, just between the Red Sox dugout and the famed Pesky’s Pole (you have to appreciate something named after a guy who hit only six home runs at Fenway). My son and I watched batting practice for a while, awed by the incredibly green grass, the stupendously green 37-foot-high wall in left field, and the outrageously simple, manually operated scoreboard that sits just above the warning track. Despite being gone for years, I could almost see “Duffy’s Cliff,” the 10-foot rise in left field that sat just beneath the monster; it was named for Sox outfielder Duffy Lewis and was in place until 1934.
Our seats were in right field — not the most desirable spot in Fenway, but seeing that every game at the place since May 2003 has been a sell-out, and that it is intimately small and there’s few bad seats, we felt lucky to have them. The sun — on holiday for most of our time in New England — actually beat down on us for an hour or so before it began to gloriously drop behind the “Monster.”
Fenway actually was named for the one-time swampy areas — the fens — that plagued that part of Boston. It opened in April 1912, just a few days after the Titanic sank, and it remains the smallest ballpark in the Major Leagues. There is virtually no foul territory there, and it seems that every inch is used or reserved for some historic shrine. For instance, there is one red seat among the thousands of green oak outfield chairs at Fenway; it sat just four rows behind us. Ted Williams, the great Sox slugger, hit the longest measurable home run ever seen at Fenway — 502 feet — in 1946; it supposedly ripped a fan’s straw hat on impact. Not far from us, as well, attached to the right field façade, were the numbers of retired Red Sox stars: Bobby Doerr, Joe Cronin, Pesky, Carl Yastrzemski (my sixth-grade hero), Williams, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, and Jackie Robinson (his No. 42 hangs in all Major League stadiums).
The Sox played well — I had never seen them win in trips I had made it to St. Louis and Chicago — and David “Big Papi” Ortiz hit a home run into the Boston bullpen just below us. We ate cotton candy and nachos and brats and even put up with an obnoxious drunk a row back; nothing was going to ruin our Fenway experience.
As I sat in class that fall so many years ago, with Larry Sweet on one side and Danny Cooper on the other, I thought watching the Sox on TV was great. But after sitting in Fenway that warm late-spring evening, all I can say is that the view from right field sure beats the picture that aluminum foil gave us any day.
Mike Lunsford can be reached at hickory913@aol.com, or by regular mail c/o the Tribune-Star, P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Mike’s webpage can be found at www.mikelunsford.com.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: It’s not heaven; it’s Fenway…
- Mike Lunsford
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A walk in the woods
I went for a walk in the woods one day last week after work. It was a warm and green afternoon, and a fresh blue breeze blew in from the west like a new spring friend.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Cheerful green of wheat fights winter blahs
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On the simple joys of watching it snow ...
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On this day above all, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering a Lefty Frizzell-kind of Christmas ...
My brother and sister and I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table a month ago, shifting in our seats just enough to make our yet-to-be digested turkey sit a little more easily, and, as we often do when we get together, we reminisced about our childhoods for a while.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The wonders of wading in ‘The Iridescence of a Shallow Stream’
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Little man who came to dinner changes feel of household
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Reflections: a bit of red glass and our daily thanksgivings
I sat in the half-light of my old desk lamp a few nights ago, a chilly wind blowing in from the northwest that made me appreciative of my long-sleeved shirt and purring heater.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Growing up — and ‘old’ — with many mouths to feed
At our family reunion last summer, I asked my brother if I could borrow a pair of photo albums he had put together. Over the past couple of years, I have committed quite a few of our family’s old yellowing snapshots to newly cropped and digitalized lives, and I wanted to do the same with some of the pictures John has collected for himself.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Violets in October – a pleasant surprise
I guess I don’t pay much attention to the weather forecasts these days because it surprised me a bit when our furnace kicked on a few nights ago.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A library is a good thing — even a little, homegrown one
I grew up with libraries, and I can’t imagine there ever being a time when I won’t want to wander one exploring it like some bookworm-Balboa, finding an author or title that I never really knew existed before. Creating those “Eureka” moments seems to be a dying interest now that so many of us download and digest books electronically without ever really considering that there just might be some hidden gem we’d have liked even more had we simply stumbled upon it on a shelf by accident. I think those moments of discovery are not unlike kicking up lost treasure a mile from where X marks the spot.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘soothsayer’ who came to dinner
I’ve had a good time opening my mail these past few weeks. Sure, I still received the usual junk about lower credit card rates and satellite television packages, but the genuine letters made me smile; most were about a story I wrote in late August.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The agony of de‘feet’ has this writer on his heels
I don’t know if I can electrocute myself by using a computer and soaking my feet in a pan of warm water at the same time, but I am contemplating taking the risk. My feet, particularly the right foot, have staged a 10-digit rebellion over the past few months. After a half-century of commendable service, my pods are screaming to be taken in for repairs, a big inconvenience for a guy who works on his feet all day and whose “sole” form of serious exercise is putting one foot in front of another walking the local roadways.
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Mike Lunsford: Summer’s hidden beauty worth the wait
The great naturalist John Burroughs once said that nature teaches more than she preaches. I can’t recall a summer where that rings true more than this one, for that old sun of ours truly taught us a thing or two these past three months.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time to redefine the concept of ‘assisted living’
Although it has been nearly two months now, I can’t forget the few afternoon hours I spent on a hot June day this summer at a local “assisted living” facility in town. I had been asked to speak to a group of men there about Father’s Day, but for most part, the wonderful old guys who came to listen certainly made my day more memorable than I did theirs.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: This summer has us recalling the heat of ’36
It was “only” 99 degrees one afternoon last week when I decided to work on a backyard deck. With a jack and a drill and a little more sweat than I wanted to invest in the project, I went about the business of leveling its sags and dips a bit. The sun pounded down on my head and shoulders like a thug’s blackjack, but as I packed my tools and drank a glass of cool water under a big maple tree a few hours later, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I’ve been these past few dusty and drought-stricken weeks. I have worked under this summer’s heat lamp for only a few hours at a time, but God help the roofers and utility linesmen and firemen, and so many others, who are out in it day after long hot day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We had no better friend than Andy Taylor
The world is a sadder place now that Andy Griffith has died, but at least we still have Andy Taylor.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Wading deeper into the subject of Blue Herons
Like a relative who has worn out his welcome, the hot, parched weather of this young summer has already overstayed its visit with us, so my wife and I have found ourselves walking our road later in the evenings to keep our feet cool and our backs dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Thanking two dads whose gifts have never stopped coming…
It is nearly a week until Father’s Day, but I have had my dad, and my father-in-law — a second dad to me — on my mind today. I wrote about both men just a few weeks ago, but I have set my mind to write about them again anyway. I don’t want this story to be sad; they both loved to laugh and wouldn’t want that. No, I just wanted to tell them hello, and to thank them again for what they still do for me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Feeding time at the homestead draws a host of new guests
I stepped outside into the warmth of an unusually mild early March morning last week to do what I always do just before I grab my briefcase and book bag and lunch bag and head off to work. It’s nearly always dark when I leave, even as the sun gets up earlier and earlier in the late winter, so I often go about the business of feeding our cats with porch lights on and a flashlight in hand.
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