Nicknames

I’ve always wanted to have a cool nickname, one that everybody would know, so that when the name was said everybody would know exactly who they were talking about. I know, it sounds extremely self-centered and selfish. However, when your name is Joe and the best anyone can come up with is Joey, you feel a little underwhelmed. Also, I don’t count knucklehead, nitwit and moron as nicknames, even if my older brothers called me those a lot.

When we used to watch Happy Days, Fonzie had a nephew named Spike. I thought Spike was a cool name, but it just didn’t fit me. I wasn’t a tough guy going around in a leather jacket. I was more of an easy going guy with a fake leather jacket…that cracked and split in the cold weather. Then there was Butch, which may have come from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. However, again the name just didn’t fit me. It was just too tough for a small, scrawny guy like me. For a long time I just went by the pathetic Joey.

Then around sixth grade, I came up with a decent nickname: Fry. That was a name that fit me, because I was small and I was French. My closest neighborhood friends started calling me that, but that was about it. It never caught fire. Even though I even painted a white navy hat with bright, neon colors with the name Fry on the front, and wore it just about everywhere for close to a year, only those few friends called me Fry. I did have one or two friends who called me Jose, what they thought was an ironic twist on my name since my ancestry is French. For both years of junior high, I was simply known as Joe, or Joey by those who’d known me since early-elementary school.

When I got to high school, I ended up with a bunch of different names. A group of guys that were a year older than me and knew my sister started calling me Slits, which was short for Slits for Eyes, because they thought I had small eyes. Then a couple of the guys on the baseball team started calling me Rooster because the nickname of the Red Sox shortstop at the time was Rooster, and I played shortstop. One time I had a good enough game in baseball that my name was in the local paper – as Chuck instead of Joe – so a few people started calling me that. A few guys on the baseball team called me Fifi (pronounced fee fee) because I had a hat that had the letters FE on it, and again because my ancestry was French. I have to tell you, when you get up to bat with the bases loaded and a couple of guys are yelling for Fifi to get a hit, the guys on the other team are not too intimidated.

So here I am fifty something years in to my life and I still don’t have a cool nickname. Now I’m not sure if I even want one. I’ve kind of gotten used to just plain old Joe. No hidden meaning, no people asking me all the time why I’m called Pee Wee or Dimples or Zou Zou. No embarrassing stories going back thirty or forty years that even my kids would get tired of hearing. Nope, you can just call me Joe. Or, as my Dad used to say, “Call me what you want, just don’t call me late for supper!”

Spring Ahead

This last week has been one of the most wonderful weeks I’ve had in months. We have turned the corner from winter to spring, and spring is breaking out everywhere. The daytime temperatures are well above freezing and when the wind isn’t blowing it is actually quite pleasant outside. The trees are starting to bud, the grass has turned ever so slightly greener and flowers are starting to pop up in people’s yards. We’re even starting to reap some benefits from Daylight Saving Time, with the hours of sunlight getting longer.

One thing that happened last week is one of my all-time favorite spring rituals. I had to run out to the store for something and when I came back I heard the sound that tells me it is truly spring – peepers! No, not perverts looking in people’s windows, but those little critters that create a symphony of sound every spring. Until I hear those guys it isn’t spring for me. It doesn’t matter the date or if spring has officially arrived, if I don’t hear those peepers, it’s still winter. After a long, cold winter like we had this year, I could listen to the peepers for hours. It is one of the sounds that truly make me happy every year. I bet when I’m 90 I’ll still love to hear the peepers – that is if I can still hear then!

Another day we had a fairly heavy downpour just before I left for work and it was still raining a little as I drove home. Then, just as abruptly as spring showers start, the rain stopped and the sun came out. In front of me, looming over the highway was a very bright and colorful rainbow. It looked incredible and I kept taking peeks at it as I made my way home. Maybe it’s hokey, but there’s something comforting about seeing a rainbow after heavy rain. It makes me feel like everything is going to be okay.

To top it all off, baseball started last week! I may not be into baseball as much I used to be, but when the season begins it tells me that better things are coming – warmer weather, longer days, being outside more, cookouts, vacations, the beach! Sure, it’s going to be a while before we can do some of these things, like go to the beach, but those wonderful days are coming. There’s nothing like watching a ball game on a lazy Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the summer, sipping a cold drink and relaxing. There are lots of good memories there.

One of the things I used to love to do while watching a game as a kid was to get out my baseball cards and put them in order of the lineup for both teams. Then when the guy came up to hit, I’d look at his picture and check out his stats on the back of the card. Just so you get the complete picture, I had full sets of Topps cards from 1968 – 1975; some in doubles, some in triples, so needless to say I had a lot of cards. How did I get all those cards when I didn’t have the money to buy them? I started out small with just a few packs and I used the doubles and triples to flip cards at recess and got more. Remember that horrible cardboard-like bubblegum that came with the cards? Dentists throughout the U.S. loved that stuff.  Anyway, my friend across the street (the one I almost “killed with kindness”) was always getting packs of cards and when a card he needed was one I had, I’d trade the one card for four or five of his doubles. By the end of the year, not only did he have a full set, I had a full set, too!  

Before I was able to go to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, I still managed to have a front row box seat to a game. Yup, I got a box big enough to sit in, got my cards and plopped the box down in front of the TV. Voila, box seats in the front row! Dad was willing to play along with my little game for a while and let me sit in the box and watch the game. However, when I asked about hot dogs that was probably pushing it a little too far. Nevertheless, I did enjoy pretending I was at Fenway watching the game live and in color. We didn’t have a color TV yet, so I really was pretending. Yes, those were good times.

I’m looking forward to many more wonderful days in the months ahead. Spring is here and like all the trees and flowers, I feel myself coming back to life. I’ll enjoy the warm sun on my face, having a burger from the grill and going to the beach. I may even enjoy a Red Sox game or two. Just not sitting in a box – I don’t have one big enough to fit me.    

Play Ball

Baseball is back! From the time the snow starts flying, I look forward to the start of spring training. That helps me get through the dead of winter, knowing that at some point in the not-too-distant future, in far off, warm, sunny places, men are playing baseball. So while there is snow on the ground here in Massachusetts and most of us don’t want to spend too much time outside, they’re playing baseball in Florida and Arizona. As spring training goes on I start looking forward to Opening Day.

When I was a kid, Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox meant a couple of things: Spring was officially here and my baseball season was just around the corner. I loved baseball so much growing up that I truly wanted to be a major league baseball player. I played with anyone who wanted to play, even if it was just playing a game of catch. I played any time someone wanted to play, even if it was so cold that I still needed a winter jacket to keep warm. Heck, I loved baseball so much I played all by myself by making up games. I would throw a rubber ball off the house and catch the “grounders” that came back to me. I would throw the ball up in the air as high as I could and catch the “fly balls” hit to me. Once I started Little League, I don’t think I missed more than a couple of practices and never missed games. I just loved to play ball.

The cool thing about Opening Day is that every team is equal. Sure, everyone is 0 – 0, but at least for one day every team is the same. Until the games are played, every team has an equal chance to win it all, even if odds-makers say Pittsburgh or Cleveland have no chance. At least for the first day, every team has a chance to win it all. When a team that has been given absolutely no chance to win half their games, let alone the World Series, pulls off a come from behind, walk-off Opening Day victory, their fans start to think, “Maybe this is our year!” In most cases, a month later they’re saying, “Wait ‘til next year.”

Another thing that comes to mind regarding Opening Day is hope. Who doesn’t hope that their favorite team wins the World Series? I don’t know anyone who says, “I hope my team comes in last place this year.” No, everyone wants their team to WIN. When I was in Little League and Babe Ruth League, I hoped my team would win the championship that year. I was lucky enough to play in two championships and win one of them and it was incredible to be a champion. Even though I thought it would never happen, I was able to see the Red Sox actually win not one, but two, World Series. Many people went to their grave waiting to see the Red Sox as champions, yet I got to see it happen. It’s something I won’t forget.  

Here’s the thing about baseball and all sports: You’ve got to go out and play and win the games! Just because your team is picked to win it all, doesn’t mean it will happen. Just because your team has the most talent, doesn’t mean it will be the best team. There are injuries to deal with, slumps, bad breaks and sometimes everything just comes together all at once for another team and they win. It’s a long season. What could have been and should have been wasn’t.

There are parallels to life itself. Some people are designated to be successful when they’re younger because they’re so talented, intelligent, handsome/beautiful, or driven. But you still need to get out there and live your life and fulfill those possibilities (I would say potential but I actually hate that word because it has a negative connotation to me, like you’re a failure if you don’t live up to what someone else thinks about you. Maybe that will be a post at some point in the future.). As in sports, there are injuries in life to deal with, slumps where things just don’t go your way, bad breaks that are out of your control and times where everything just comes together for someone else instead of you. It’s very easy to be all smiles and happy when everything is going your way, but how about when it’s not going your way, when it seems that everything you’re trying is failing? Do you want to just give up, throw in the towel and quit? If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve all been there.

I know I’ve been there a few times. But somewhere in the back of my head I heard my Dad telling me that you finish what you start; that if you make a commitment to something, you give it your best effort and see it through to the end. Sometimes just starting something is a victory. Sometimes just finishing what you started is a victory. For some people, just making it through life is a victory. As I get older, I find myself not looking at the scoreboard of life as much as I used to. Instead, I find myself just enjoying the game, life, a whole lot more. Enjoying life – that’s a victory in my book.