Second Base

 

I moved from Mahopac to Greenwich over five months ago.

Still, I've been back every couple of weeks since, driving by to check on the mail. For the most part, the mail has stopped coming. 

Of course, I'm also driving by to see how things are coming along at the old house. While there is still a flood of memories, I'm also just curious.

A few weeks back, I was faced with the stunning reality that the paint had been changed from yellow to this grey and that a couple of windows -- one in my bedroom as a kid and one in my parent's bedroom -- had been sealed.

As I've said all along, it's the new owners' property now and it's their business.

But, well, today, I discovered a couple of trees had been torn down.

One was in the backyard, at the corner of the house. Honestly, I wanted to take that one down some time ago as it was clearly threatening to be a problem. It hung right over the back corner of the house and its needles could often be found in the gutter.

The other, well, everyone knew it as second base.

It was a tall evergreen that sat to the left of the house when looking from the road. 

It was a tree that my mother always wanted in the yard, even when I'd grumble about it being a bear to clean around when mowing the lawn. Eventually, my cousin Kris helped prune it so that I could run the lawnmower under it.

For what it's worth, my mom always hoped it would be taken by Rockefeller Center for their Christmas tree. Small note: my cousin in Westchester County did have their tree taken to New York several years back.

But our tree was also the centerpiece of the mini Yankee Stadium in the Adams yard.

How could I possibly be expected to grow up in a yard without a baseball field? Or a football field?

No, I'm not really that entitled. I was blessed to have a yard (and neighborhood) that was adaptable to sports like that.

The side of our house was prime for Wiffle ball games and any other type of ball/diamond game I could muster. The front yard of the house served as the outfield and, thanks to its rectangular shape, served as a good football field.

In the days before batting cages, I'd stand in the sideyard with a bucket of balls and self-hit. It was great hand-eye coordination.

Wiffle? Baseball? Tennis balls? Rubber balls? Yes to all.

The tree in the middle was second base. Yeah, it wasn't a perfect field but ask any kid who played on it and see if it bothered them.

Oh, I'll tell you what bothered them: hitting a ball up the middle -- on the ground or a liner -- and the ball getting stuck in the tree. Believe me when I say I crawled into and under that prickly thing too many times for an accurate count.

But the tree peak -- that glorious piece standing atop that would be perfect for an angel to rest upon it -- was sacred. Why? Because the house rule was that if a ball went over the peak of the tree it was a home run.

Hey, we needed quirks. Yankee Stadium had Death Valley. My Yankee Stadium had a tree and the front corner of the house.

Don't get me wrong, as I said, I lamented many Saturdays about mowing around second base. I wished it was gone so often. I wanted a field without it as an obstacle.

But, on the other hand, it wouldn't have been the same.

So, today, when I drove by to see it sitting there chopped into pieces, a small part of my youth felt like I had struck out.

I texted some of the people who I knew would appreciate the picture that I took. The general reaction was "wow."

With the tree gone so goes its secrets of eating the baseballs, plastic balls, rubber balls, football, golf balls, and whatever else it gobbled.

With the tree gone, I'm reminded of parties and picnics. Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day. Heck, if there wasn't snow on the ground on Thanksgiving I'd still be out there hitting. We were also out there for graduations and whatever other excuse we could fine.

I'm reminded of Kris and Kourtney and Keli. I'm reminded of the Wiffle ball games that even Mom played in -- something that astounds her younger grandchildren. 

I'm reminded of my nieces and nephews and friends and neighbors. 

I'm reminded of many - seriously, so many -- games that I stood out there and conducted on my own, practicing play-by-play out loud.

"That's where you started," a neighbor mentioned to me at my mother's funeral, which was both extremely sweet and quite embarrassing because I hoped nobody had ever heard me.

So goes another passage of life. We move on.

It's not ours to control though we can certainly pause to mourn.

I continue to be wowed by the changes and fascinated by what is coming next.

But this one stung.