This blog post was supposed to be about elevator buttons. I’d thought about it all day, and I have some things I want to say. But then I sat on the couch to write, and my six-year-old daughter sat next to me.While I wrote the first paragraph, she watched Phineas and Ferb on her Kindle. I tried to block out the sound, but caught a reference to gum. My daughter heard the same thing and said, “I want gum.” I suggested she check her Halloween candy, and she came back with a piece of Double Bubble (“Is Double Bubble gum?”) and Super Bubble.“I want someone to teach me how to blow a bubble.”Challenge accepted.We each took a piece of gum and after a couple of minutes she said, “Mine is soft now.” I tried to walk her through the process, showing her how to do it with my own piece of gum. It’s not easy.She tried again and narrowly avoided spitting her gum across the room. Despite her best efforts, no bubble ever emerged. But we’ve covered the basics, and with plenty of practice, and a few dozen pieces of gum, I’m sure she’ll blow a bubble soon.My ten-year-old son saw what we were doing and asked me to teach him. I gave him the same directions and he’s almost got it. His cheeks look a bit like Dizzy Gillespie’s, so perhaps he’s blowing a bit too hard, but he’s close.Watching these two kids blow bubbles reminded me of one of the greatest, and rarest, joys of parenting: immediate results.Much of parenting is a leap of faith. We’ve only got one chance to be a good parent to our kids, and if we screw it up then we’ve created another jerk for the world. And if there’s one thing this world doesn’t need, it’s more jerks.I’ve got four kids, and I think I’ve figured out that good parenting isn’t rocket science. There’s no great secret. All it takes is spending time with your kids, showing interest in them, supporting them, and teaching them. There's no substitute for any of it.Although, you’ll notice that I said I think I’ve figured it out. I won’t really know for at least another decade. Then we’ll see how they turned out.Luckily, not every aspect of parenting requires such a long delay before figuring out whether it’s successful.Bubble blowing is one of these immediate results examples. I work with my kids, I teach them how to do it, I tell them what they’re doing wrong, I make sure they practice, and eventually they’ll get it. No decade-plus wait to see if I know what I’m talking about. Validation comes with success.There are a number of different times during childhood when we can gain immediate results. We teach our kids to: ride a bike, tie their shoes, catch a fish, throw a baseball, skip a rock, use chopsticks, pick an apple, and parallel park. Kids need to learn all of these things, and if we just take the time to show them, they’ll catch on, and we get to enjoy immediate results.Parenting can be a challenge because there are no shortcuts. Unless you decide to just pawn off the responsibility of parenting your child to someone else entirely, it takes consistent, dedicated, sustained effort to be a good parent.Coincidentally, that same kind of effort is required—but in lesser amounts—to learn the skills I previously mentioned.So in that way, teaching your kids the little things—how to brush their teeth, how to cut their food—not only gives them the skill you’re teaching, but also shows them the value of effort.
When I started writing this post, my son couldn’t blow a bubble. He’s been practicing the entire time I’ve been writing, and now he can. He’s got a thin, sticky skin of bubble gum adhered to his upper lip as proof.With some luck he’ll realize that maybe I know what I’m talking about. This time it’s just blowing a bubble. But I’ve also taught him how to ride a bike, how to tie his shoes, and how to throw a baseball.My guidance and his effort led to success. So hopefully, the next time I’m teaching him something—something more important than blowing bubbles—he’ll realize that I know what I’m talking about, and that if he listens to me, and puts forth effort, he’ll figure it out.And when he does, I'll be there to congratulate him. No matter how long it takes.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Why Are Parents so Dumb?PREVIOUS POST: The Cubs World Series Victory Parade and Rally Didn't Have Five-Million in Attendance
The Cubs World Series Victory Parade and Rally Didn't Have Five-Million in Attendance
I spent the day at the Cubs World Series victory rally with my kids today. I let them ditch school, and I took a vacation day from work, and we joined a bunch of other people in Grant Park to celebrate.After we parked near Clark and Polk, we walked over to Grant Park where we encountered a mass, a throng, a shitload of people. We shuffled along the sidewalk, and through a chute like cattle, on our way to the bag check. Security had no problem with our sealed bottles of water and PB&J sandwiches, so we continued across Columbus, and over to Lower Hutchinson Field where the rally took place.We watched on big screens as the parade left Wrigley Field and headed down Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue. My youngest son and I left our spot in the Field and ran to Columbus Drive where we watched the parade pass. We cheered as we watched Ryne Sandberg, Kerry Wood, Jake Arietta, Kyle Schwarber, Addison Russell and the rest of the badass Cubs pass.As the last bus passed a wave of people who had gathered near the fence line to watch the parade, including us, suddenly ran back to the field. We found my other two kids and settled in to watch the rally.We watched a highlight video, listened to a few speeches, cheered the players when they came on stage, and, of course, sang “Go Cubs Go.” Then we left and waited in another seemingly endless line to cross back over Columbus to return to our car. After half an hour or so of shuffling along, some intuitive police officers decided to open another passage across Columbus and the human traffic jam immediately eased. We returned to our car, made a left turn on Clark, and got the hell out of there.I was quite surprised to hear that the city estimated attendance along the parade route and at the rally to be five million people.Wait a minute! Five million people? A five with six zeros behind it? Can that be right?I don’t think so.There were a lot of people, but sure as God made green apples, there’s no way there were five million people there.Let’s think of this a number of ways and see if this estimate makes sense.First, let’s assume that each person requires two square feet of space. That’s if people are jam-packed together, and if each person is about my size, 6 feet tall, 180 lbs. Obviously some will be bigger, and some will be smaller. But think of it like this, if you give each person two square feet of space, and you have a 2,000 square foot house, you should be able to fit 1,000 people in your house.Can you fit 1,000 people in your house? Probably not. But still, just for the sake of this calculation, let’s say you can. So each person takes up two square feet.Now, if there are five million people, at two square feet per person, that’s ten million square feet.
According to my calculations on Google Maps, Lower Hutchinson Field is about 750 feet wide and 1750 feet long, and that’s including the area where the stage was setup. So that’s 1.3 million square feet. At two square feet per person, that works out to 650,000 people. That’s assuming people were jam-packed over the entire surface of the field, which they weren’t.“But what about the parade route?” you ask.Good point. We need 4.35 million people on the parade route for the 5 million estimate to hold water.The route from Wrigley Field, to Lake Shore Drive, down Michigan, to Lower Hutchinson Field is about eight miles, or 42,240 feet.To fit 4.35 million people along that route, we’ll need 8.7 million square feet. The route is 42,240 feet long, so it has to be about 206 feet wide to total 8.7 million square feet.Michigan Avenue, and its widest point, is about 120 feet across, building-to-building. So obviously, 206 feet of people can’t fit in a space that’s only about 120 feet across. Never mind the fact that people didn’t fill the entire street, they only filled the sidewalks. (The parade had to pass through, after all!)So, no, there weren’t five million people along the parade route and at the rally at Lower Hutchinson Field. But how many were there?Well, the Field was about three-fourths full, so that’s about 487,000 people. And if we assume the eight-mile parade route had twenty feet of people on each side, for a total of forty feet, then that works out to about 850,000 people. So that’s about 1.33 million total.But the parade route didn’t have that many people the whole way (almost no one lined up along the three-and-a-half miles of Lake Shore Drive, the road’s too busy and access too difficult), and some of the people at the end of the route rushed over to Lower Hutchinson Field.So I’d say there were about a million people total.That’s still impressive! I think anyone who attended the rally would have been awe-struck to think of joining a million people to celebrate the Cubs.And no matter how many people were there, I know that my kids and I will remember this day the four of us shared for the rest of our lives. And that’s the most important thing of all.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: The Years I Played BaseballPREVIOUS POST: The Cubs Won the World Series, so Anything is Possible
The Cubs Won the World Series, so Anything is Possible
I know there’s a difference between improbable and impossible. But for so many years a Cubs World Series championship has seemed not just improbable, but actually impossible.I remember so many long, hot summers spent watching Cubs teams that were so bad for so long that it seemed impossible—not improbable—that they’d ever turn things around. There were seasons where they lost 95, 96, 97 games, and fielded teams composed mostly of has-beens and never-weres.They signed big-name free agents that turned out to be busts. They drafted much-hyped players in the first-round, providing a glimmer of hope for the future, only to have disappointment follow as the young player’s career petered out at Double A Pittsfield, or even Single A Peoria.But then 2016 happened.Well, actually, some things happened in the years before that. Tom Ricketts bought the team. He hired Theo Epstein. He brought some guys with him. They revamped the organization, drafted well, made trades, signed free agents that (mostly) worked out.And in the course of five years or so, everything changed. Things got easier. Even the depths of losing seasons seemed like a necessary cold, dark winter with the promise of springtime ahead.Then It happened.So if this thing—It—that has seemed so impossible all my life has actually happened, and the world hasn’t ended, then what else might happen?World peace. Go big or go home. It’s unlikely, yes. But if the Cubs can blow a lead in game 7 and end up not losing the game, then why can’t Israelis and Palestinians come together? Why can’t we figure out a way to eliminate hatred? Sure, this stuff might be human nature, but so what? We don’t not try to do something just because it’s difficult.To paraphrase JFK’s “We choose to go to the moon” speech, we choose world peace not because it’s easy, but because it is hard. That’s the same reason Theo Epstein and his crew came to Chicago to rebuild the Cubs. And look what they did!Of course it’ll take time, but to borrow an ancient Chinese quote of which JFK was fond: A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. So let’s get started.Time travel. Look, 1.21 gigawatts should no longer be an obstacle to time travel. Neither should the flux capacitor. If Theo Epstein can figure out a way to build a Cubs team that leads the league in walks, then someone out there has to be able to figure out time travel. Doc Brown did most of the work when he fell off of his toilet and hit his head, so why hasn’t anyone built on that breakthrough?However, if someone does figure out time travel, then it’s imperative that they resist the urge to change anything. 1969 still has to happen. So does 1984. And 2003. And 2004. Ty Griffin, Earl Cunningham, and Lance Dickson, too. None of it can change. Space-time continuum and such.But concerns over changing the course of history shouldn’t dissuade us from figuring this out. George Washington wants to meet you.
Ripening avocadoes. Okay, there’s important and then there’s important. How have we permitted ourselves to live in a world where we have to wait for avocadoes to ripen? We’ve invented the turducken, yet we’re still stuck trying to use an avocado during the ten-minute window, five days from now, in which it will be perfectly ripe?There are few things in this world better than homemade guacamole, and when I want it, I want it now, not next week. Good luck doing anything with an unripe avocado. And no matter what the internet says, there’s no way to hasten the ripening. So I’m guacless. Unacceptable. Get on it, world.Improbable is not impossible. The Cubs have proven that. So let’s get started on these things. If we do a little bit everyday, then in five years we’ll have something. Like a World Series trophy. Okay, maybe not that, but you know what I mean.And although the problems above are big, there are probably things in your own life that seem impossible, too. They’re not. Unless you do nothing.So try, and see what happens. You might end up with perfectly ripe avocadoes, or something even better.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: The Years I Played BaseballPREVIOUS POST: I Won't Cry if the Cubs Lose, But if They Win...
I Won't Cry if the Cubs Lose, But if They Win...
The day of disappointment has finally arrived. That’s the cynic’s way to look at it, I suppose. But after tonight’s game seven, one team’s fans are going to be disappointed.If it were up to me, I’d choose Cleveland’s fans for this disappointment.First, there are fewer of them, apparently. Just under 1.6 million people attended an Indians home game this year. That’s less than half the 3.2 million people who attended a Cubs home game this year.Second, the Cavaliers just won the NBA championship a few months ago. I’m sure there’s a lot of crossover between Cav fans and Indians fans. Let’s spread the wealth a little. Call me a championship socialist if you must, but why let Cleveland win two championships while Chicago gets none?And third, the Indians just won a World Series in 1948.But in thirty years of watching baseball, I’ve come to one irrefutable conclusion: the baseball gods don’t give a damn what I want!So even though this season has been exciting, and it’s fairly clear that the Cubs are the best team in baseball this year, and a comeback after being down three games to one would be the cherry on top of a deliciously goaty sundae, I’m prepared for the Cubs to lose.Baseball is a game built for disappointment. Even the best hitters to ever play failed 65% of the time. But in 1985—the first year I paid attention to baseball—when the Royals, who I was rooting for (their two best players were George Brett and Bret Saberhagen, how could I not?) beat the Cardinals in the World Series, I didn’t understand that not every season would end in joyful triumph for me.It’s a lesson I learned the following year when the Cubs finished thirty-seven games behind the first-place Mets. And when the hated Mets beat the Astros in the NLCS, I cried. And when they won the World Series, I cried again.And those tears were just the beginning. In years that followed, I cried rivers of frustrated disappointment: in 1987 when Rick Sutcliffe didn’t win the Cy Young award (now I’m just pissed about it!), in 1989 when the Cubs lost to the Giants in the NLCS, in 1991 when the Twins beat the Braves in an extra-inning game seven.By then I was thirteen, and realized that maybe I should stop crying about it. And the next year Tom Hanks would reinforce my new stance by reminding us, “There’s no crying. There’s no crying in baseball.”But the frustration and disappointment continued through seasons when the Cubs weren’t good, and my baseball enemies were. After years of unfilled fandom, mixed with flirtations with success that ultimately led to nothing, I’ve developed a thick skin. I expect my team to lose.And because I’ve come to expect my team to lose, and maybe also because I’m thirty-eight-years-old now, I won’t cry if the Cubs lose tonight. I’ll be disappointed, but I won’t cry.However, if they win…. I mean, if they win the World Series…. If the Chicago Cubs win the World Series tonight, then I might cry.It’s unbelievable to me that we’re even talking about this. The World Series. The Cubs. Game Seven.This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. I’ve got thirty-one seasons of my personal baseball-watching history, thousands of hours spent watching with my dad and my kids, hundreds of hours spent talking about games and players and stats and trivia, and dozens of trips to Wrigley Field that all point to one thing: the Cubs don’t win the World Series.They just don’t.So what happens if they do?
Everything comes back. Harry Caray, and little league, and Topps baseball cards, and the Cubs Convention, and a rainy day in 2000, and debating whether the Cubs should have drafted Dwight Gooden instead of Shawon Dunston, and making the All-star team when I was fourteen and fifteen, and grounding into a double play to end the season, and coaching little league, and the 647 players who have played for the Cubs since 1985, and the poor people who have had to listen to me drone on about some fact or statistic, and watching my kids run the bases at Wrigley. All of it.Because a baseball fan, and a Cubs fan in particular, has a past, a history. And that history isn’t just with the team. The team is the personification of that history. When the team does well, we focus on the team. And by focusing on the team, we focus on our past. We remember it all.I’ll watch the game at home tonight with my kids. And if the Cubs win we’ll celebrate, and we’ll never forget it. But if they win, I won’t just be at home. I’ll be at all of those other baseball places as well.Cubs in seven.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: The Years I Played BaseballPREVIOUS POST: Thoughts on a Cubs World Series Weekend
Thoughts on a Cubs World Series Weekend
In preparation for tonight’s game six in Cleveland, I had a few thoughts about this past weekend’s World Series games at Wrigley Field.Wait a minute, don’t race through that sentence and forget it. Those words. Imagine. “This past weekend’s World Series games at Wrigley Field.” The World Series. Wrigley Field.Are you kidding me?I can’t believe the Cubs are good. I can’t believe the Cubs are this good.I can recite the World Series winners and losers for the past fifty years or so. Four years from now, when I’m reciting them backward in my head, and I say, “2016, Cubs over Indians,” I still won’t believe it. (Foreshadowing.)But we’ve got the rest of our lives to marvel at the unbelievability of it. Today I’m talking about real things that I’ve noticed since Friday.Wrigley is still Wrigley. On Friday I took my youngest son and daughter to Wrigley Field during the day. We couldn’t go to the game, but I just thought it’d be neat to absorb some of the atmosphere. We parked, walked a few blocks to Wrigley, took some pictures, went into a couple of shops, looked around, and just enjoyed ourselves. We had a blast.
I haven’t been to a game in a couple of years, and they’ve made a lot of changes to the park and the surroundings since then. But despite all the changes, Wrigley is still Wrigley. It’s just a bit different. When my kids reached out to touch the stadium, completely on their own accord, they were still touching the memories of 100 years of baseball. That doesn’t go away with a jumbotron and a few ads.This series has turned my son into a baseball fan. He has played baseball for six years, and we’ve gone to games, and he’s watched parts of some games on TV. But this is the first time he’s sitting down at home to watch entire games. He recognizes players. He talks about the game before and after it happens. I became a fan during the 1985 World Series when the Royals beat the hated St. Louis Cardinals. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the Royals because of that initial experience. I suspect my son will look at this year’s World Series in the same way.People get old. I know, that’s a ground-breaking revelation, isn’t it? Of course people get old! But every now and then we see someone we haven’t seen in a long time and we think, “Boy, he’s really grown old.” It’s a ridiculously obvious thing to think, but I’ve thought that a number of times in the past few days.On Friday, when my kids and I were walking around Wrigley Field, we saw Ronnie Woo Woo. I first remember seeing him in the bleachers at Wrigley when I was kid back in the eighties. He’s been around a long time, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s getting old. But I was surprised.I saw Bobby Dernier on the Fox pregame show, and he’s no longer the speedy outfielder I remember from my youth. Chip Caray still makes my ears bleed. They’re both older.One person appears to have avoided getting older though: Wayne Messmer. That dude’s rendition of the national anthem on Sunday night made me wonder why anyone else on Earth ever bothers to sing anything. Wayne Messmer has all the singing.Games are too long. I’m a baseball purist, so games never seem boring to me. But for the love of God, can we speed things up? The average game length for the series thus far is 3:24. I understand every pitch is important, and concentration is key, and blah, blah, blah, but there’s something to be said for just throwing the damn ball!I’m ready for it to be over. I know this is blasphemous, but part of me will be happy when the World Series is over.Baseball’s regular season is 162 games. That’s a long season. And because it’s long, each individual game holds less importance than, say, a regular season NFL game, which has only 16 games, and consequently permits the NFL to imply that every game is life-or-death. But when the baseball postseason arrives, each game is important because the entire season comes down to one game, or five games, or seven games, or, as is the case right now, two games.I can skip a game during the regular season. There’s always another one tomorrow. But the postseason has more urgency.Still, enough is enough. I’ve skipped a game or two each round, which has helped with burnout, but let’s get it done.I’m not getting any younger.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: What A Cubs World Series Means to MePREVIOUS POST: The Song That Reminds Me To Appreciate
The Song That Reminds Me To Appreciate
There are many things about which I’m completely ignorant, but music is perhaps the subject where my ignorance annoys me the most. For the first couple decades of my life music meant almost nothing to me, with few exceptions.Since then I’ve grown to love music, but I haven’t learned much about it. Only recently have I decided to stop trying to figure out what’s “good” and what’s “bad” and what’s “too popular” and accept that I like some songs and I hate some songs. There are bands who make me happy and bands who test my reflexes to see how quickly I can change the channel.I don’t know anything about music, but what I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter. Music isn’t about knowledge, it’s about feeling. Perceiving it through that lens has allowed me to open up to music I would have never considered before.And if music is about feeling, then it only makes sense that particular songs are capable of enhancing those feelings.This evening’s Blogapalooz-Hour challenge is “Pick a song (or songs) that has special meaning to you and explain why."About eighteen months ago my daughter got sick. It was the sort of sickness that temporarily changes a person. The gregarious, funny, lively girl disappeared, and was replaced by someone sad, pitiful, and unenergetic. And even though experience shows that this change will only last a few days—the virus will run its course and she’ll return to normal—it’s still scary.We don’t know how much we take for granted until things disappear.When was the last time you turned on a light and were thankful for electricity? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Just wait until a storm rolls through and knocks out your power for a day.By the end of summer we don’t even acknowledge nice weather. It’s eighty degrees and sunny, but we don’t pay any attention to it. But wait until late January when the temperature doesn’t hit double digits, and there’s disgusting grey slush everywhere, and the wind is so cold that you’re sure that your cheeks are going to freeze and fall off.That’s what it’s like when your child is sick.My daughter has a cough right now. The past couple of nights she hasn’t slept well because she’s coughing so much. We tried propping her up on a pillow, but that only helped slightly. When I wake her up for school, she’s sluggish. But only now am I truly thankful for the nights when she gets deep, restful sleep.Which brings me back to her previous sickness last year. She battled for a few days. She was too weak to eat, consumed with a high temperature, and so sad that her eyes barely opened. The longest days of life are those days when your child is sick. I wanted it to go away. I wanted her to laugh, to draw, to play, to ask for a cookie.And then, after a few days of this, I was in the kitchen making dinner. I had my laptop on the counter, streaming music while I cooked. A song ended, and another began, and over the noise of the music, despite the volume turned rather high, I heard a tiny voice, and looked up to see her standing there. Her hair was a knotty mess. Her nightgown wrinkled, one sock missing.But she smiled and said, “I like that song!”That’s when I knew she was feeling better.And ever since, every time I hear that song, it reminds me not to take anything for granted. It reminds me what’s really important. On really bad days it reminds me that better days are ahead. That I’ve felt happiness before, and that it will return.The lyrics of the song have meaning, but the song itself also has meaning. Every song that impacts us offers that dual meaning. What a song means to us isn’t necessarily the meaning intended by the artist.Songs make us feel. And if we have those feelings, then it doesn’t matter if we’re ignorant. All that matters is the song and that place—real or imagined, in the past or in the future—where the song takes us.The song from above is Shut Up and Dance, by Walk the Moon.Subscribe by e-mail here! IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: How A Tiny Book Made Me Feel SpecialPREVIOUS POST: I Don't Know The Favorite Thing I've Written, or Do I?
I Don't Know The Favorite Thing I've Written, or Do I?
I like to write. But like many people, I also hate to write. It’s sometimes intimidating to look at a blank screen and see that there’s nothing there and realize that it’s my job to put something there. And I’ve only got twenty-six letters and a few punctuation marks to work with.
And most of the time—I’d say 75% of the time—I don’t feel much better at the end than I did at the beginning. What I plan to write, and what I end up writing are usually two different things. Much to my chagrin, what I end up writing usually doesn’t measure up to what I thought I would write.However, sometimes I surprise myself, and I finish writing something and think, “That’s really good.” Those moments are the reason that I write.For the morning edition of this month’s ChicagoNow collective writing exercise, we were challenged to answer, “What's the favorite thing you've ever written?”The short answer is: I don’t know. But I’ve got to write 550 more words to finish this post, so “I don’t know” won’t cut it.Perhaps my favorite thing that I’ve written is my journal. I started keeping a journal in May 1994. At first I wrote in a notebook, and consistent with my time obsession, I’d enter the time that I began and ended each entry. I don’t know why.I’ve written in the journal off and on—sometimes with gaps of just a few months, sometimes with gaps of a year or so—ever since. I haven’t written in it for about a year-and-a-half, but I’m sure I’ll resume at some point.I won’t link to it here, as suggested in the writing challenge, because I’m not dead yet. But if you’re around after me, maybe you’ll be able to read it. And trust me, if you can get through the mundanity of it, you might find a few bits of interest.I’ve written some good blog posts. You can find many of them right here at ChicagoNow. However, I wrote a couple hundred more “blog posts” back in the late nineties before blogging was even a thing. I sent them out to a small list of people by e-mail. I’ve still got them on floppy disks somewhere, and I’ve toyed with the idea of going back to them to see if twenty-year-old Brett has anything to teach thirty-eight-year-old Brett.I published a novel on Amazon. It’s called The Death Market. You can purchase it for your Kindle here. Or e-mail me (brettbakerwrites@gmail.com) and I’ll send it to you for free.I like it. It’s good. But I should have worked on it more before I published it. I’m touching it up now, and I’ll release a new, cleaner, tighter edition of it soon.Overall I’m proud of my writing. It’s hard to do. Not everyone does it well. Most people hate to do it, and don’t even try to do it. But other than spending time with my family, it’s the thing I do that makes me feel the most accomplished.My writing is best when it’s personal, but shared. The journal is personal, but it’s not shared, so I suppose it can’t really be my favorite. Someday the important people in my life might read it, and it will serve as a reminder of me after I’m gone.But better than my journal are the things I’ve written about loved ones right now. While I’m alive and they’re alive. The most basic purpose of writing, after all, is communication. And the most basic reason for existence is our relationships with other people.So it makes sense that the writing that resonates the most with me, that I’m most proud of, that I go back and reread, is the writing that communicates to the important people in my life how much I value them and our relationship.And if I’ve communicated that well enough so those people understand, then what else can I ask for?Now, if anything I write makes me rich, then maybe I’ll have a different answer, but until then…(This blog post is NOT my favorite thing I’ve ever written. But an hour ago it didn’t exist. And now it does. So that’s something. The first step in creating anything great is to make it exist.)Subscribe by e-mail here! IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: How A Tiny Book Made Me Feel SpecialPREVIOUS POST: What A Cubs World Series Means to Me
What A Cubs World Series Means to Me
Saturday night I watched the Cubs win a game that sent them to the World Series. On the list of sentences that I never thought I’d truthfully write, the preceding ranks near the top.But who cares? Why did 300,000 people crowd around Wrigley Field after the game on Saturday? Why did Hillary Clinton make this face?Part of it is that it’s been so long since the Cubs have been in the World Series. 1945. That’s the year that the minimum wage went up to forty cents an hour. The ABC Television network didn’t debut for three more years. And four of the original five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame—Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson—were still alive.
The other part—the more important part—that makes a Cubs World Series significant, is each Cubs fan’s personal history with the team. While we collectively celebrated a team’s success, what we really celebrated was the fulfillment of our own wishes after so many disappointments.I’m only 38 years old. My first memories of the Cubs are from the 1986 season. So this is only the thirty-first season I remember being a fan. So even though the team hasn’t made it to the World Series in 71 years, I didn’t suffer the disappointment of even half of those seasons.But my dad, who probably began following the Cubs around 1950, suffered through most of those seasons, including the dreadful conclusion to the 1969 season, during which he was preparing to marry a woman from New York!So the other night, when I sat in my basement with my three youngest kids, and we watched that groundball to the shortstop, and I said, “Here it is!” the word it had a few different meanings.It was the conclusion of the game. It was the winning of a pennant. It was the end of a decades-long drought. But it was also validation for every moment of frustration, elation, anger, despondency, hope, heartbreak, and utter disbelief that I’ve experienced in thirty years of watching Cubs baseball.It was Jody Davis hitting a grand slam in the first game I ever attended at Wrigley Field, April 27, 1986. It was my dad bringing our entire family down from the upper deck to the box seats at the end of the game so we could see the field up close.It was our entire family freezing through the first game of a doubleheader on the last day of that same season, and the feeling of disappointment, yet relief, when the second game was canceled due to darkness.It was the joy of watching Wally Backman of the hated New York Mets suffer a pulled hamstring while running to first on June 8, 1987. It was traveling to Pittsburgh in 1989 to watch a game against the Pirates. It was hating Will Clark for the rest of his career after his performance in the 1989 playoffs.It was driving to Atlanta to watch game 2 of the 1998 NLDS against the Braves.It was sitting in the first row of the left field seats with my girlfriend and daughter on May 11, 2000 as Glenallen Hill hit a homerun on top of the roof across the street during what was, at the time, the longest nine-inning game in National League history.It was an extra-inning game on April 30, 2009 in which the Marlins scored six runs in the top of the tenth. It was watching the Iowa Cubs at Wrigley Field with all the kids later that same summer with a heat index over 100.It was a hundred more memories that are unique to me. But every Cubs fan has their own list of memories.I would have enjoyed this victory no matter what. A winning team crystallizes our fanaticism in a way that nothing else can. Everyone likes a winner.But for those of us who have a lifetime of memories associated with the Cubs, winning reminds us of what we have given to the team, and what the team has given to us. The disappointment of a loss, or the exhilaration of a win, in any of the games above has long worn off, but the memories remain.And those memories are why I wanted to experience the moment with my kids by my side. It’s why we got in the car and drove twenty minutes to see my dad after the game. It’s some of life’s good stuff.The Cubs are winning games. And it’s been fun to watch. But long after the World Series is decided, and long after the sting or the ecstasy of the outcome has worn off, we’ll have the memories, and the stories.I can’t wait to see what we’re going to remember for the rest of our lives!Subscribe by e-mail here! IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Childhood: It's Just a Phase So Don't Miss ItPREVIOUS POST: Why Hillary is the Perfect Opponent for Trump's Campaign of Deplorability