YESTERYEARS

If there is such a word, is what I occupied myself with recently.

Visiting Mom is a trip in itself, seeing some of the things that sit around the house, art work I did, gifts I purchased for her and the furnishings, all lend themselves to a time gone by. After a pleasant visit with her, I decided as I was leaving to go home to venture out into the old neighborhood and see if things had changed.

The old street looks the same

Starting on her street, I drove down toward the railroad station that is now blocked off by a fence that ends Mom’s road. I used to walk to the station on my way to school and later before I married to work in the city. I looked for the homes and saw so many that still look the same and some that have seemed to deteriorate, like a stick of butter on a hot summer day, twisting out of shape, looking run-down and almost ghostly. There is a beautiful old house that must have been built in the 1930’s that stands at the end of the road. In it lived a wonderful family, a pair of grandparents, a widowed mother who worked very hard to raise her two children, and the kids: Carol and Ernie, good kids who were friendly. Ernie and I used to hang out together and listen to 45’s on his porch in the summer evenings after school. Someone else lives there now, and it is not the house it once was. It lost all its appeal, charm and beauty!

 

Butch lived here

There were other homes that had families that I knew, some with schoolmates, some with relatives of other families. It was a peaceful neighborhood, you greeted each other, got vegetables from home gardens, and chatted up with each other, just like the American dream says we should.

As I let the street I decided to go to the old ball field where I played baseball. Not sure anymore where the turn was, I made what I felt was an approximation, and sure enough I was heading in the right direction. But I remember the wooded areas that surrounded the street and the field being carved out of the woods at the end of the road. Now there stands a huge open field behind a school that was always there, and this huge sports complex of ball fields! I got out of the car and sat on a team bench in this empty field, and though how strange that no one kid was on this field of dreams. There used to be teeming with kids and the North Bellport Athletic Association, where two former cops created a baseball and basketball league. I spent many hours away form home, taking my bicycle, my glove over the handlebars and my freshly washed green and white uniform with the NBAA Shamrocks on it, ready to do battle with the NBAA Red Rockets!

There are no ball players anymore.

I could hear coach Lowe, shouting to shade right at second base, and “look for a good pitch” as he managed us with his Jonathan Winters face. The kids screaming and the ump, shouting in my ear as he yelled STRIKE! at the batter, as I stood up to return the ball to Gene Cronkite our pitcher.

As I drove home, I started to realize that the whole world is indeed changing from some 50 odd years ago! Where are all the kids? The dreams, where did they flee to, wasn’t it just yesterday I dreamt of being a big-league ballplayer, electrifying huge crowds at Yankee Stadium with my slick fielding and potent bat? But as I drove I saw my answer: walking along the road was this young kid, maybe 11 or 12, holding a I-phone and staring into it, I don’t know if he really knew or was aware of where he was, but he did answer my question for me.