IN THIS LAND

Dear Spike:

Before it gets too far away from me, I’d like to share with you the experience I had last Tuesday – and what I think it means for the world you are inheriting.

Tuesday, of course, was the day in which our country inaugurated a new president. I watched the historic event unfold from the base club at Hill Air Force Base.

There, I sat beside a chaplain named Carl Wright and studied the way he beamed as his new commander in chief took the oath of office and delivered the inaugural address.

“I’m having a hard time believing this is all happening,” he told me. “I just have a deep sense of pride and awe."

He had good reason for those emotions. Thirty years ago, the chaplain was a young enlisted airman, returning home from his first duty assignment overseas, only to confront some of the uglier realities of life back in the land of the free.

As he tells the story, he was outfitted in his dress blues, waiting for a bus outside a military base in Charleston, South Carolina, when his pride was wrenched off its hinges.

The driver pulled up, stepped off the bus, and proceeded to take everyone’s ticket — except for the young black airman standing in the front of the line.

“I was getting worried,” the chaplain remembered. “I knew there were only so many seats on the bus, and I’d spent all of my money on this ticket, so I said, ‘excuse me, sir, are you going to take my ticket?’ ”

The bus driver looked him up and down and then, turning to the white passengers, mocked the young airman for having had the audacity to speak up -- throwing in a few cruel racial epithets for good measure.

With no other way to get home to Washington, D.C., the airman took the verbal assault and, when the driver finally consented to letting him on the bus, took a seat toward the back.

“I cried the entire way home,” he told me.

I’m sure this will sound as ancient history to you. As the television in the corner of the base club replayed images of black man taking on the role of our nation's leader, it seemed as ancient history to me.

But then I thought to ask…

“Chaplain,” I said, “when was the last time you heard that word?”

“That word?”

“The word the bus driver called you.”

“‘Nigger?’ Oh, you know, you hear that word all the time.”

“I don’t mean in music. I don’t mean in movies. I mean directed at you. Like that. Like it was in 1979.”

“Oh, in that way? It’s been a few years.”

I could see him flipping back through a mental calendar before he answered more confidently.

Two years, he said

Two years. That all that separated this man — a decorated officer in the United States Air Force — from the last time he’d been disparaged in that ugly, awful way.

Even on days when the world seems forever changed, you’ll sometimes get reminders that this planet actually turns quite slowly.

You should not ignore those truths. But neither should you allow those momentary darknesses to snuff out the lights of change.

Chaplain Wright told me that he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking of the day he cried from Charleston to D.C. And he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking of the times, between then and now, in which he’s been treated as a second-class citizen in this land where all men are created equal.

He prefers to recall a day, not long back, when he stepped off the airplane from his most recent overseas duty in Iraq.

“There were people there to greet me, to shake my hand, and I was thanked for my service."

That, he said, is all he ever wanted.

Love,
dad

STARRY-EYED REMINISCENCES

Dear Spike:

There is precious little in this world that makes me feel nostalgic.

The soundtrack from Out of Africa — which my father regularly played at dinnertime — always sends me back to the goulash suppers he’d make for my siblings and I after my mother went back to school.

The smell of fresh oranges sometimes makes me pine for the days when I’d climb up into my grandparents’ tree in search of a perfect piece of fruit.

And once in a while, the sight of kids fishing in the pond near our home reminds me of the days I used to spend trying to catch carp with my good friend, Aaron Jones, in the city streams near his home.

But other than that, I’m not big on starry-eyed reminiscences.

Or so I thought.

As many tales do, this story begins at the library: We’d just loaded up a big canvas bag with books for you and were getting ready to check out when your mother suggested we swing through the children’s video section. There we found a few Bob the Builder videos, a documentary about the history of Disney World and a few other Disney flicks. And then, to my great joy, a true treasure: The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin.

The videos were from a cartoon based on the magical life of Teddy Ruxpin, an animatronic stuffed bear that was the toy to have when it was first sold in 1985.

That was the same year in which the first Back to the Future movie was released, Mike Tyson made his professional boxing debut and Nintendo began selling its most famous video game console.

Those things were all part of my childhood, but none has ever made me feel like I did when I found the Ruxpin videos. And that’s a bit strange, because the truth is that I never had a Teddy Ruxpin – although my little brother did.

The combination of nostalgia and unfulfilled childhood longing was simply too much to bear. As I watched the videos with you that night, I decided that you desperately needed a Ruxpin, and I cruised the Internet looking for a used bear in working condition.

But it didn’t take long for me to come upon the Website for a Hong Kong toy company that had bought the rights for the long-abandoned Ruxpin — and that had been turning out a brand new line of digital Teddys since 2005.

With no thought whatsoever as to whether or not we could afford the $50 bear or the two $20 story cartridges, I’d placed my order. And even though I felt rather guilty, the following day, as I admitted to your mother what I’d done, I couldn’t bring myself to say that, in hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it again. Such is the power of nostalgia, I suppose.

The box arrived on our front porch this afternoon. And this evening, you had your first encounter with a talking bear.

I brought him in and sat him on the edge of the bed.

“Ruxpin!” you squealed, recognizing the bear from the cartoons we’ve been watching together. “Ruxpin!”

A promising start, to be sure. I turned him on.

“My name is Teddy Ruxpin,” he said.

Your eyes grew wide.

“Can you and I be friends?” he asked.

Your mouth dropped open.

“I really enjoy talking to people,” he explained.

You smiled and inched forward toward the talking bear.

“Ruxpin!” you said again, reaching out your hand to shake his furry paw. “Pleased to meet you!”

You sat mostly spellbound as Ruxpin told a story about searching for treasure in the magical land of Grundo, interrupting only to curiously touch his blinking eyes, rub his talking snout, and pet his furry ears.

“Hi!” you said, again and again. “Hi! Hi! Hi!”

I felt vindicated, a bit, by your reaction, although I still feel a bit guilty about dropping $100 on a toy bear — even one that talks, sings songs and tells stories.

But I’m glad you like it. And I’m looking forward to sharing it with you, if you’ll allow me to.

I wouldn’t get used to this sort of thing, though. You’re unlikely, for instance, to get a Rubik’s Cube.

I had one of those. And it was a pain in the ass.

Love,
dad

HISTORY TO YOU

Dear Spike:

Will you shiver when you hear this speech?
Yes, I know you’ll probably shrug.
What is historic for me will be history to you.
A black man in the White House?
OK, you’ll say. That’s fine.
Now give me a woman.
Give me an immigrant.
Give me a homosexual.
For this is the way of our Republic.
The way of our Revolution.
Thirst.
Insatiable.
For a more perfect union.

Love,
dad

OF A DREAM

Dear Spike:

Today will come and go for you like any other.

The sun has not imploded. Gravity has not been upended. The sky is still the sky and the land is still the land and the sea is still the sea.

Today is just another day for you. And, in the very grand scheme of things, for all of us.

But it does not feel that way. No, today it feels as though the entire world has changed.

Today, a black man has been elected as our president.

You are still very young, but at some point in the next four years, you will come to understand that there is someone in this nation we call our president. You won't at first understand how he came to be who he came to be. You won't know precisely what he does.

You will simply know him as a photograph. As an image on the television screen. As a name spoken on the radio.

And when you come to this very simple understanding, the man you will know as your president will not look like any of the men that preceded him as the leader of our nation.

But you will not know that this is special.

For you will not know — not for a few more years, at least — our nation's great shame. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we held people in chains and sold them as cattle and kept them as property. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we kept people from voting and sent them to sit in the back of the bus and told them that they were not human enough to eat at our side. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we hung people from trees.

Thank God Almighty that you will not know. Thank God Almighty that when you come to learn these things, you will learn them as history. Ancient as the pyramids, I pray.

You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children of many races, colors and creeds. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children belonging to parents who look like your parents and who do not. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children who, like you, will be learning these things for the first time, too. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children who, like you, will not know that the ascension of a black man into the White House is in any way significant.

For as far as you will know, that is how it always has been.

As you grow you will come to know that our shame is not so ancient, that our wounds are still quite fresh. You will learn that there is still so much work to be done.

You will learn of a dream not yet realized, of a check still not cashed.

Do not be dismayed.

Listen to me, my child: The world can change.

I know that it is so.

Love,
dad

FAR MORE ENDURING

Dear Spike:

You signed your first book the other day.

Well, scribbled, more or less.

It's been about a week now since "Things I Learned About My Dad (In Therapy)" was released — with a letter to you as Chapter Three. It was a nice treat to see my writing, which usually ends up in the recycling bin, between hard covers for a change — though it occurs to me that it quite possibly was the last time, too.

I don't think Gutenberg's Revolution is over quite yet, but I have a hard time believing we'll still be killing trees to make books when you're my age. Same goes for paper newspapers, which I doubt will be around much longer than the next decade.

I suppose I should be worried — I pay my share of our family's mortgage with my newspaper paycheck. But I've got this silly notion that the written word is far more enduring than whatever fleeting substance it happens to be superimposed upon. I mean, really, when was the last time anyone tried to write a novel on the walls of a cave? You know what I mean?

By whatever the means, I do hope you'll write. For yourself, if you wish. And for others, if you dare.

To that end, a warning: Not everyone is going to appreciate what you write. Some people will try their best to let you know that in a kind and supportive way. Some people won't.

Some people will be as mean and nasty as they possibly can. These people are called assholes.

As in many things in life, you'll have to have a thick skin. The truth is that most great writers aren't appreciated as such until they've long been gone from this world.

And since there's no way to know how history will remember you, you might as well assume you're one of the greats.

Love,
dad

NO JOE HILL

Dear Spike:

A potty strike?

I'm a big supporter of labor. Big.

But you're no Joe Hill.

Love,
dad

ALTAR OF NIXON

Dear Spike:

As I slipped into our bedroom, late last night, your mother lifted her head from her pillow and blinked some of the sleep from her eyes.

“I was dreaming that I was having a conversation with Richard Nixon,” she said.

“Really? What did he say ?” I asked.

She shrunk her head into her shoulders, shifted her voice into a quivering barritone and said: “Hello, this is Richard Nixon.”

“And that was it?” I asked.

She mumbled something about a telephone call, but I couldn’t understand it. Soon, she was back asleep and snoring.

Your mother’s always had a rather perplexing fetish for our 37th president. In fact, it used to be that whenever she was having trouble sleeping, she would ask me to tell her about Watergate.

No kidding. It was like singing her a lullaby, only this song was about a group of third-rate burglars known as plumbers, a disgruntled FBI agent known as Deep Throat and a slush fund known as CREEP.

After a while, though, she knew the story better than I. And so that was that.

I never really understood your mom’s fascination with Tricky Dick. She’s about as liberal as they come, after all, and he was, well, Tricky Dick. And yet I think if he were still alive and running for office this year, he’d have her vote (and probably a lot of our money, as well.)

She’s a strange creature, your mother.

Or maybe she simply understands that history can be crueler than it needs to be.

The first thing I learned about Herbert Hoover was that he was President of the United States during the Great Depression and that the shanty towns that sprung up across America during this time were known as “Hoovervilles” — so named in deference to the perception that the president was particularly callous and uncaring about the plight of his poorest fellow countrymen during those terrible years.

And that was it. In fact, I’m pretty certain that I managed to graduate high school without learning a single additional fact about the 31st president.

It wasn’t until much later that I learned that Hoover was perhaps the most compassionate and experienced economist ever to sit in the Oval Office, that he had been largely responsible for keeping Europe fed in the wake of World War I, that he had in fact made it a point of his presidency to battle poverty in America and that the Great Depression was caused by a great and horrible confluence of domestic and international factors, none of which had anything to do with Hoover’s presidency.

Hoover died just about 14 years before I was born, and yet my entire formal education about his legacy was that he had a bunch of slums named after him. Talk about a bum rap.

By some matter of coincidence, Nixon died just about 14 years before you were born. And such as it is, I don’t expect your formal education about him to include much more than the fact that he was forced to resign due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

Alas, you’re less likely to learn that Nixon crafted an end to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, negotiated with Russia for a historic reduction in nuclear weapons, opened China to the world community and oversaw unprecedented environmental reforms.

That said, I’m certainly not going to tell you that you should kneel down next to your mother at the altar of Nixon. But I guess I hope you’ll learn more than a few rote facts about the men (and women?) who lead our nation.

To that end, I won’t mind one bit telling you a bedtime story, or two, about Watergate and Stagflation, Iran-Contra and The Blue Dress...

... then again, perhaps that last story might have to wait until you’re a bit older.

In any case, I think what you’ll find is that no one can be so simply defined.

That’s true for presidents.

And for me.

And for you.

And for anyone else about whom we might dream.

Love,
dad

EVERY LITTLE STEP

Dear Spike:

This week was an absolute explosion of development for you.

You’ve begun to sit upright without any help at all. You can now roll from your back to your front and then back again. You’ve started to slither, just a bit, in an attempt to grab out-of-reach toys. You study your hands as they open and close and have begun to experiment with moving one or two fingers at a time. And, just in the past two or three days, you’ve begun to scream — not in sadness or agony, but simply to demand attention and maybe to sing a little song.

I’ve pretty much given up trying to capture every momentous moment with the camera. And recently, I’ve had to abandon the fantasy that I’m even going to be present for every little step.

To wit, this exchange with your mother a few days ago:

Me: “Come quick! Look what she’s doing.”

Your mom: (rushing into the room) “What? What is it?”

Me: (proudly) “Look! Spike is crawling toward her toys!”

Your mom: (sighing) “Oh that? Yeah, she did that with me a few days ago.”

Me: “A few days ago? Where was I?”

Your mom: “Well, you were somewhere.”

Me: “So I missed it?”

Your mom: “No, you just saw it.”

Me: “It’s just not the same.”

Your mom: “Yes, it is.”

She’s right, of course. It seems that we’re often so obsessed with firsts that we tend to miss the significance, the joy, the struggle and the glory in everything that comes next.

Many people know, for instance, that Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player in Major League Baseball. Far fewer can name the second black player drafted out of the Negro Leagues, Larry Doby, who played his first game for the Cleveland Indians on July 6, 1947.

The world had not, in the 11 weeks separating Robinson’s and Doby’s entries into the big leagues, suddenly become a more tolerant place for black baseball players. Doby spent the rest of the 1947 season – and indeed, a good portion of his Hall of Fame career — suffering through the same indignities as Robinson.

Robinson rightfully went down in history for his place in advancing the cause of civil rights for Americans of color. Doby’s role in the battle, meanwhile, was ignominiously ignored. And yet even in Robinson’s shadow, Doby still shined. He was a seven-time All-Star, twice led the American League in home runs and led the Indians with seven hits, including a double and a homer, in Cleveland’s 1948 World Series victory over the Boston Braves.

Many people know that Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first men to summit Mt. Everest. Hillary and the expedition’s leader, John Hunt, were promptly knighted for their accomplishment. Nearly lost to history is the subsequent journey of Swiss climbers Ernst Schmied and Jürg Marmet.

The 29,029-foot peak had not shrunk a single inch in the three years that separated the first and second ascents of the world’s tallest mountain. Marmet and Schmied (and, the following day, climbing partners Adolf Reist and Hans Rudolf von Gunten) didn’t have the promise of being first to the top of the world to help drive them up the deadly peak. They climbed not for history but for themselves.

And at the risk of beating a dead horse ...

Many people know that Charles Lindbergh was the first person to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The second person to make the solo hop hasn’t exactly been lost to history, but I think that’s likely because her name was Amelia Earhart.

To be certain, Earhart knew there was value in being first. “Never do things others can do and will do,” she once said, “if there are things others cannot do or will not do.”

But it seems equally clear to me that Earhart didn’t make her solo flight across the Atlantic — or any of her other “firsts” — simply to be the first woman to lay claim to those feats.

“Adventure,” she once said, “is worthwhile in itself.”

Being first — or being present to witness a first — is as good an excuse for doing something as anything. But being second should never be an excuse not to do something or appreciate something that is being done beautifully.

The last time our species set foot on the moon was in 1972 — six years before I was born. Someday I hope to see us (you?) return. And when that happens, I assure you, I won’t be disappointed that I’m not watching Neil Armstrong’s first “small step.”

A giant leap is a giant leap, after all.

Congratulations on all of your accomplishments this week. I can’t wait to see you do it all again.

And again.

And again.

Love,
dad

THE WORLD CHANGES

Don't criticize
What you can't understand
— Bob Dylan



Dear Spike:

So profound was the work Albert Einstein did in 1905 that scientists have taken to calling that year his annus mirabilis — Latin for “miracle year.” The theories he advanced that year (in his spare time, no less, as he still was working as a clerk in a patent office) revolutionized the way we understand time, light, motion and matter.

Yet at the time, nobody really noticed.

It would be three years before Einstein would land even a part-time teaching job — and four years more before he would be accepted as a full professor at the prestigeous Swiss Polytechnic.

And it was not until 1919, 14 years after his now famous flurry of discovery, that Einstein was treated to the notoriety that marked the remainder of his life — not for the celebrated equation E = mc2 but rather for having predicted the way the light of distant stars would behave when nearing our Sun.

Detailing the way the effect had been measured and studied following a solar eclipse earlier in the year, The New York Times reported. . .

LIGHTS ALL ASKEW IN THE HEAVENS;
Men of Science More or Less Agog Over Results of Eclipse Observations;
EINSTEIN THEORY TRIUMPHS
Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to be, but Nobody Need Worry.

Ah, they just don’t write headlines like they used to.

Here’s my point: Sometimes the world changes and no one notices. But that don't mean the times aren’t a changin’.

When you learn something that changes the way you see the world, don’t be discouraged if it seems that everyone else is still moving around the sun at the same old speed of 18.55 miles per second.

After all, everything is relative.

Love,
dad

SHE MIGHT BE

Dear Spike:

If there is a God, several religious traditions tell us, she created us in Her image.

Some folks take that to mean we have a lot to live up to. But I’ve always kind of figured it means God must be just as fallible, dirty, ugly, greedy, jealous, hateful and violent as we are.

But sometimes, I think, God know must know when my opinion of mankind — and thus, of Her — has sunk to a new low. Because whenever I’m ready to write off mankind and God alike as hopeless failures, I see a glimpse of what we could be.

And in a glimpse of a glimpse, I see what She might be.

A few weeks ago, I happened to be in your mother’s classroom when the school librarian came in to schedule a time for the kindergartners to visit the library for the annual book fair.

I’ll bet you’ll love the book fair. I certainly did when I was a child. It was a traveling bookstore — a chance to touch and hold a shiny new book, to leaf through its pages (or even take a peek at the end) before shelling out a few bucks to make it mine.

But something was instantly clear to me as I listened to your mother work out a time to bring her class to the fair. And it almost broke my heart.

Most of your mom’s students can’t even afford to buy a school lunch. And so I doubted any of them were going to have the money to purchase a book at the fair. Instead, I feared, they would be paraded in front of a bunch of great books — and then told that, unless they had money — they wouldn’t be allowed to take one home.

When the librarian left, I asked your mom how many of her students would be able to buy a book.

“Maybe two or three,” she sighed.

“And how many do you think have ever received a brand new book of their own?” I asked.

“Maybe two or three,” she sighed again.

As a matter of fact, she lamented, a lot of her students probably didn’t even have a single book, new or used, at home, except maybe for the ones they borrowed from the school library.

A few days ago, I sent an e-mail to everyone I work with at the newspaper, explaining that I was going to set out a coffee can in hopes of collecting enough money to let every kid in your mom’s class pick out a brand new book of their own at the fair. It was probably a violation of workplace protocol, but I thought it would be funny if they tried to fire me for collecting money to buy books for kids.

Last night I counted the money. There was enough for every kid in your mom’s class to buy a book.

And for every kid in the kindergarten class down the hall.

And for every kid in the class next to that.

And for every kid in the class next to that.

This morning, every single kindergarten student at your mom’s school went to the book fair and picked out a book of their very own, all thanks to a bunch of cynical, cold-blooded journalists.

That was plenty enough to make my day. And it did wonders to restore my faith in humanity.

But I'm not sure that God's all that good at leaving well enough alone.

This afternoon, I spoke to an incredible man named Ahmed Shah Karimi. Shah, as folks call him, lives in Concord — just about 45 minutes up Interstate 680 from where your grandparents live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A few years back, Shah served as an interpreter for a National Guard unit from Utah that I have been following. And that's how I happened to be speaking to him today.

Born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, Shah attended university in India. Among his classmates was a young political science student named Hamid Karzai. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Shah went to the United States and took a job driving limousines in New York City. Karzai returned to Afghanistan, where he helped raise money to fight against the Russian occupation.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 changed both men’s lives forever. Karzai — who had been exciled to Pakistan during the Taliban regime's rule — was installed as Afghanistan’s president following the U.S. invasion. Shah, who was picking up a client near the World Trade Center when the first hijacked airplane crashed, also found himself back in his native land — working for the U.S. military.

One day, Shah told me, he took an afternoon off to go into Kabul.

“It was my first time back in the city,” he said. “And when I got out of the taxi, I looked around and saw so many little boys, just wandering around on the street. I came into a shop and I stopped to talk with people and they told me ‘yes, these children are orphans. They have no fathers. No parents.”

There are 40,000 orphans living on the streets of Kabul. According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the city’s orphanages can only shelter about 2,000.

As the story is told by Shah's friends, the intrepid interpreter pretty much made a B-line to Karzai's presidential palace, emerging from a meeting with his old classmate with a 50-acre land grant on the outskirts of Kabul and a plan to build the nation's largest orphanage and school.

Shah didn’t know anything about fundraising, or building, or managing an orphanage. But he knew what he had to do.

“As a human being I had to act,” he said. He’s now well on his way to raising the funds to move his family back to Afghanistan and begin construction on his project.

Maybe there is a God. And maybe She created us in Her image. And maybe She is just as fallible, dirty, ugly, greedy, jealous, hateful and violent as we are.

But maybe, also, we have a lot to live up to.

If only in a glimpse of a glimpse, I hope you see Her that way.

Love,
dad

BUT NOT TODAY

Dear Spike:

Today had no particular significance to you. None more than yesterday. None more than tomorrow. You woke, ate, cried, napped, spent a bit of time trying to shove your entire fist in your mouth, and did a few other things that babies do. And then you went back to sleep.

This was not a day of infamy. Or of sorrow. Or of fear. This was not a day of hate.

This was not the day the towers fell.

Someday, I suppose, it will be. Maybe not so vividly. Certainly not so emotionally. But, at least, historically.

Today will be December 7. Today will be November 22. Another day one generation will never forget. Another day the next generation will hardly know.

So it goes. And goes. And goes.

I am pleased you will not know this day as I do. Someday, of course, you will come to apperceive that our species — capable of such love, generosity, understanding and acceptance — is also well-practiced in hate, greed, ignorance and intolerance.

But not today.

Today you know Sept. 11 as the day we went to the park and sat on a bench and watched other parents and their children walk by. This was the day you looked up, as the wind rustled through the branches of the trees, enchanted by the moving shapes, colors and shades. This was the day you cried for an hour straight for no particular reason at all.

This was the day I took you to the Senior Center, down the street from our home, to vote in the mayoral primary election. This was the day that the little old ladies all cooed over you as we waited our turn to vote.

This was the day you came to your mother’s rescue after a hard day teaching her kindergartners (the first crop of public school students to have arrived on this planet after the towers fell.) This is the day you fell asleep in her arms. This is the day your smile washed away her tears.

This is the day you wore a yellow cotton nightgown. This is the day you spit up on your yellow cotton nightgown. This is the day you wore a blue Superman shirt. This is the day you spit up on your blue Superman shirt.

No, today did not have any particular significance to you. None more than yesterday. None more than tomorrow.

I wish I could say the same. Oh God, how I do.

Love,
dad

BASE TO BASE

Dear Spike:

My father likes to tell people that I was just three days old when I attended my first baseball game.

We waited a bit longer to introduce you (mostly because the local team has been on the road since you were born) but I’ll still be proud to tell folks that we took you out to the ball game when you were small enough to fit into my mitt.

The home team won, 7 to 3. You saw your first home run and your first 6-4-3 double play. And when the visiting batters were retired in the top of the seventh, you stretched out your arms as if, by instinct, you knew what to do.

And in doing so, you participated in a noble ritual.

There’s something religious about baseball. Maybe its the strict adherence to an ancient liturgy, to rules and seance and tradition. Maybe it’s the communion of peanuts and Cracker Jack. Maybe it’s the hymns.

You don’t have to love this game the way I do (and your grandfather does, and your great-grandfather does) but I hope you’ll understand it and respect it. It’s as important a part of our country’s heritage as our national anthem and our flag.

Maybe more.

Yes, I think more.

That might be patriotic sacrilege in these days of bumper-sticker nationalism, but I think it’s true.

Like our nation, the game was born of British stock. And like our nation, it quickly and hubristically came into its own, maturing during our country’s darkest hours as men gathered in Army camps and war prisons — officers with enlisted men, side by side.

When the Civil War ended, baseball survived — though like our nation it remained soiled by racism and segregation for generations upon generations to come. And like our nation, it ultimately righted itself of that evil.

It still remains segregated in one sad way: At some point along the line, women were relegated to the derivative game of softball. And with very limited exceptions at the higher levels of the game, they do not play alongside men.

Maybe you could change that. Like our nation, baseball is ever-changing.

Much as our Constitution has proven both supple and resilient, the game has proven able to evolve and yet remain affixed in ordinance and tradition.

Much as our government has proven stronger than any President, Congress or court, baseball has proven stronger than its players, its owners or its fans.

And much as our nation has increasingly come into the possessorship of corporate interests, so too has the professional arm of the game.

And yet it survives.

Three strikes, four balls, three outs. Nine innings, nine players. Ninety feet, from base to base.

Peanuts and Cracker Jack. The seventh-inning stretch.

Rules and seance and tradition. Suppleness and resilience.

No, you don’t have to love this game the way I do.

But I do hope you’ll let me take you again. And again. And again.

Love,
dad