Moving Thoughts

August 15, 1995

Two weeks ago I moved to Jefferson Center. (I should note, I was moved. Because of my present physical limitations, all the labor was capably done by Sara, Bill Westman and Bill Walcheck. Bill Walcheck packed the van so skillfully that all space was used and there was not a single item of breakage. Bill Westman and Sara laboriously loaded and unloaded in hot Florida weather. They stayed it on to help arrange my “efficiency.” Bill stayed for several days to help in various settling details; and to fill the freezer with delicious meals.)

As nearly as I can figure, this is the twenty-ninth move in my almost 84 years of living. I have no memory of the first two moves when my parents moved from Boston (Roxbury) to Everett; first to the corner of Ferry and Union Streets, and a couple of years later to the house they bought at 32 Oliver Street, where I grew up.

The moving here and there in 7 States (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, and Florida) would seem overly frequent. I must have had an “itchy foot” as the old saying goes. Yet, as I reflect on the subject, there were always reasons and causes for each move. In retrospect, some were not the best of reasons and causes. However, we are not permitted to live retrospectively. To live is to experience immediacy. Monday morning quarterbacks do not have to make Saturday’s decisions or to nurse Sunday’s bruises and sprains.

I am settling in comfortably here in Jefferson Center. I’m not experiencing claustrophobia even though my efficiency has fewer square feet than any other place I have lived. I have frequently been wrong in predictions, but I am quite convinced that this is my last residence.

One of the privileges of living here is a TV cable that gives 13 channels. I have taken advantage of this to watch a few baseball games – including the Boston Red Sox. I am amazed and astonished that the Bosox, as of this morning, are leading the Eastern Division of the American League by TEN games!!! Is this the year that that there will be no August-September nosedive out of contention? Has “the curse of the Babe” been exorcised? Maybe, emphasize MAYBE!!!

One of the noticeable features of these 1995 Red Sox is that the team is so different. When I watched the Red Sox play the Detroit Tigers in spring training last year, or was it the year before, very few of the present team were on the roster. Mo Vaughn was coming along; Greenwell, Naehring, Clemens were there; Valentin was just making the team. The rest of the guys on this league-leading team have been acquired since. The Red Sox management has done some very smart trading as well as bringing along good players from the farm system.

Mickey Mantle’s death started me musing in another aspect of the game. I am not as close a follower as I was once, but where are the colorful nicknames for the great players: Babe Ruth, “The Sultan of Swat”; Walter Johnson, “The Big Train”; Ty Cobb, “The Georgia Peach”; Tris Speaker, “The Grey Eagle”; Joe DiMaggio, “The Yankee Clipper”; “Dizzy” and “Daffy” Dean; Ted Williams, when he was twenty, tall, and thin, “The Splendid Splinter”; Frankie Frisch, “The Fordham Flash.” Such sobriquets seem not to be created now. My surmise is that sports-writers dreamed up the nicknames.

Frankie Frisch, a Hall of Famer, and famous New York Giant infielder in the era of John MacGraw, later also managed. Frisch was always distressed when a pitcher lacked control. He was known for his deep moan and groan as he said, frequently, “Oh, those bases on balls.”

According to writer, Leonard Koppett (THE MAN IN THE DUGOUT), Frisch best expressed the frustration of the team manager when things go wrong – as usually happens to most of them. Frisch gave advice to Red Schoendienst when Red was named manager of the St. Louis Cardinals: “Don’t take a hotel room higher than the second floor because you might want to jump.”

I don’t know why the foregoing led me to look up a quote from Albert Camus, whose writings I read and re-read. Camus noted:

“There can be no attitude so free from error that men (sic) should give it their total allegiance. I’ve had enough of people who die for an idea. What interests me is to live and die because of what one loves.”