A Sign of Spring

When the baseball pitchers and catchers begin their limbering up in places like Florida and Arizona I can't help but smile. Their annual arrival in these warm weather climates heralds the arrival of spring for people like me.

My RHS friends, like Rob Lane, Dave Rorty and Jens Larson, who live year round in these temperate climates I hope remember how it is now in the northeast and how they might have felt the same thing I feel now: a great sense of relief that winter is almost over!

At the bottom of the page are two of my all time favorite lefty pitchers: Lefty Grove and Ron Guidry. You can look up their statistics but I will add that both were fearless and accepted responsibilities. I personally believe the lessons we learn in sports carry over into the lives we live thereafter; if we only bother to remember them. My favorite lesson from my years of participating in sports has always been to dare to be good. This translates into being brave enough to take a chance and deliver more than you promise. It means standing up for what is right and letting the consequences fall as they may.

I sometimes wish we could put up posters in our bedrooms the way we did as kids of our favorite sports heroes. They were so perfect in their limited sphere of influence, and they did influence a great many young people. It would be wonderful if we could do the same with public figures. Though I realize their jobs and choices are much more complicated than Lefty Grove's or Ron Guidry's. I was told by someone who played with Lefty, Doc Cramer, that Lefty truly had one pitch: the fastball. He would dare you to hit it. His 300 wins and his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame seem to indicate this worked for him. In direct opposition is Ron Guidry, who retired before he was ready to leave the scene. He came back a couple years later and pitched a spring training game against the Yankees first team and shut them down. This wasn't an "I told you so moment" for Guidry. In hindsight, Lefty and Guidry stand as role models to all the hard work that has always been necessary to put into the craft of baseball, or any profession. The beauty of sports is sometimes seen in examples of hard work we can all learn from, especially as we examine the level of effort we all put into our own crafts. Play Ball!

The Way We Live Now

I bought a book of stamps the other day. This was quite unusual for me since I write exactly two checks every month and these are required to be sent via US Mail. When I bought this last book it got me thinking  about how we live now as compared to what I call the "simpler time" in which I grew up in Ridgewood. The mail was a much bigger part of our lives in those days. Now it is mostly an afterthought and sometimes a downright inconvenience. When I am feeling very patient I will go down to my local post office and peak in at the people waiting on line to transact their business. Nobody is happy to be there, especially the people working behind the bullet proof glass. It's not that I live in a bad neighborhood, it's only that people become so infuriated at having to wait on line that even the most calm among us might have a bad day and want to throw something after an infuriating wait to do something seemingly simple like pick up a package. The folks at Fedex and UPS I'm sure have seen these lines for themselves and figured out there was a buck to be had in making sure nobody had to suffer in this way.

It wasn't always like this and at one time working at the post office was a respectable middle class profession. Our mailman in Ridgewood lived in Midland Park and knew everyone on his route, including the kids. If you stepped out of line and you might find yourself on the receiving end of a stern warning to watch your step. He was a nice fellow who liked his job and did it well. The little bit of crowd control in the neighborhood I believe he did because he felt it important and something that civic minded people did as a matter of course.

The post office we had in Ridgewood, like it was in many towns, was not a place to be avoided. It produced wonder in many of us as to how they could possibly send so many packages and letters to so many different places in such a reasonable amount of time. If you recall it was 1963 that ZIP codes (Zone Improvement Plan) were introduced and that solved part of the mystery of the postal system's efficiency. Now we look up our Zip codes online and don't have to visit a post office to look through the huge book of zip codes.

In the 1960s ZIP codes were such a great step forward that the fact was advertised on TV.

I would be hard pressed to think of something today which touches all our lives in the same manner. To mention the Internet and all the new Social Networking applications would be a close second to Zip codes because in the old days you depended upon the US Mail. Today there are many people who still do and don't have a thing to do with the Internet. If something comes to mind I'll probably blog about it but I don't hold out much hope for something replacing Mr Zip in terms of importance in everybody's day to day lives.

So Many Unique Lives

We Ridgewood-ers (Ridgewoodians? Whatever) are spread far and wide. And we live very interesting lives. I recently discovered that one of my classmates is a boxing ring announcer. How cool is that?

The idea of a ring announcer got me to thinking. What other unique experiences have we seen? I'm not talking about skydiving, or running a marathon, or bumming around Europe. Those are special and exciting for sure, but they aren't really unusual. Lots of people do all of those things.

So, my question to you is this: What truly unique and unusual experiences have you enjoyed? Post in the comments, or send me an email (kflechtner*at*gmail*dot*com) and I will post your story to the blog. To get things started, here's mine:

I am an architect, and from the late 1990s until 2002, I helped design the Olympic Village for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. We were all so excited to work on it, and it was thrilling to watch the athletes compete, knowing that they were living in an environment we had created for them.

What's your unique experience?

Andy Pettite

Andy Pettite is retiring.  Pettitte was 240-138 in 16 seasons in the majors.

I don't blame him as I lost my desire in 1989 for competition, too. Plus, I never contributed to the NYC Experience in the same way as Andy Pettite did. He also carried on longer than most athletes. Though I have to believe that his forthcoming courtroom scenes regarding his friendship with Roger "Rocket" Clemons helped send him into retirement. Once again, I have no qualms with his choice.

Andy Pettite will never make the Baseball Hall of Fame based on regular season statistics, even though his post-season statistics are off the charts. He admitted to using steroids so it will take a Veterans Committee in 10 or 20 years to let him into the Hall of Fame.

I wish Andy the best in his future endeavors as he belongs to the "Big Four" which Super Scout Gene Michael promoted, and who formed the core which won 4 World Series in 5 years.

Andy, enjoy this time with your children. You have five rings and may one day have a special day with your image placed in Monument Park in the New Yankee Stadium. You did all us Yankee fans proud in this past season when you played hurt. If you had come back our opponents would have bunted on you to no end. With a troubled groin this is not something you should attempt at the age of 38.

Carry the fact with you every day that you will be a Yankee legend for the rest of your life. This is a high honor and not something you ever have to prove again.

Internet Bullies

Bullies have been around as long as I can remember. When they are given their comeuppance it always gives one the opportunity to hide a sly smile.

Unfortunately, when children are bullied on the Internet it is quite a but different from the public shame the old time bullies felt when they were shown the error of their ways. This makes the comparison between now and when I was growing up that much more difficult. Truth be told it is harder now. Truth be told we as adults have to take more affirmative action, in order to prevent our alumni from thinking that a jump off the GW Bridge is their best recourse.

Let's resolve to be better every day. To acknowledge that people are different and that they are born a certain way and cannot help it. Let's take the argument away that people have a choice as to how they are born and how they feel during their adolescence and young adulthood. 


I offer this only as a New Year's resolution.

Peace