{"id":108,"date":"2004-07-13T23:38:34","date_gmt":"2004-07-14T04:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=108"},"modified":"2004-08-27T23:49:45","modified_gmt":"2004-08-28T04:49:45","slug":"blogging-from-my-first-hometown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=108","title":{"rendered":"Blogging From My First Hometown"},"content":{"rendered":"

With my father in the highly-regarded Barnes Jewish Hospital<\/a> in St. Louis, I have taken this opportunity of my visit to get a hotel room in St. Charles, just across the Missouri River and about fifteen minutes from the hospital. Why did I do this instead of getting a hotel closer to Dad? Well, in a way, I’\u00c2\u2019m closer to Dad here.<\/p>\n

I lived in St. Charles from the age of six months to seventh grade, when I finally moved to Texas. I played little league baseball and Boys\u00c2\u2019’ Club football here. I learned to ride a bike and make a paper airplane here. I read The Lord of the Rings<\/em> and watched Star Wars<\/em> here. I attended elementary school, back when we still played bombardment (dodgeball) in P.E., and suffered through wearing a blazer and tie in the stupid sixth-grade choir here. I watched Reagan get elected President here, moving to Texas the very next day.<\/p>\n

And my father, of course, had a role in all of these memories, especially the baseball and learning to ride a bike. Dad took the time to manage my first four baseball teams, and I am just loaded with memories of those years.<\/p>\n

I sat at my father’\u00c2\u2019s bedside today (well, technically yesterday as it\u00c2\u2019s now past midnight). He’\u00c2\u2019s been moved from the ICU, and I think he’\u00c2\u2019ll live through this visit. That’\u00c2\u2019s the good part; the bad part is that it wasn’\u00c2\u2019t really my dad there today. Just a drugged, beaten, tired shell of a man. There were flashes of his old self, but not much. I hope there’\u00c2\u2019s more of that old self before I leave here. If not, I don’\u00c2\u2019t think he has the fight to hold on ‘\u00c2\u2018til my next visit. His muscles have melted away, he struggled to adjust his pillow an inch, he stumbled on remembering words, he rarely breathed easily.<\/p>\n

I treasure these moments with Dad, but I doubt these will be the memories that I\u00c2\u2019’ll later look back on and smile. Those will be the times much like my little league baseball days. After my visit today, instead of driving straight to the hotel, I wandered over to Blanchette Park. I looked at the hill where Dad used to take me sledding in the winter and the pool where he took me for swimming lessons. Then I watched a couple of innings of kids playing baseball. Moments in games I’\u00c2\u2019d played on those very same fields flashed from the old movie projector in my mind. Dad was there, at least in my heart.<\/p>\n

Field of Dreams<\/em> said it best: \u00c2\u201cHey, Dad, you want to have a catch?\u00c2\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With my father in the highly-regarded Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, I have taken this opportunity of my visit to get a hotel room in St. Charles, just across the Missouri River and about fifteen minutes from the hospital. Why did I do this instead of getting a hotel closer to Dad? Well, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-gunners-favorites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}