49er Faithful Fans don’t despair. It was a fantastic year and we will be that much better next year. The wise Linus consoled Charlie Brown after he struck out to end the game by saying, “ Charlie, the sun will still come up tomorrow morning.” And yes fans the sun did in fact come up Monday.
I spent Wednesday with my sister Maria. We went to the newly opened $60 million dollar, 60,000 Sq. Ft. Hayward Library. Maria had set up a private showing with the head librarian and she walked us through the magnificent three story glass enclosed beauty. It was just gorgeous.
After our tour we hopped on BART to attend a political event put on by the SF Chronicle. We had a lot of time to chat and as usual we spoke of our father and mother. Here are a couple of things that I related to Maria about DAD.
There were two things my father taught me in my youth that to this day I have never forgotten and still honor. My father was a little league and Babe Ruth coach. I was fortunate to have him as my coach for both age divisions. My father worked countless hours with me on my pitching skills and spent hours hitting me ground balls because I also played third base. Practice was important to my father and would tell me that when I grew tired of chasing all the grounders that was the time I was to kick it into another gear. The words “tired” and “I’ve had enough” were foreign to my father.
My father would take me up to Highland School, It have three levels, a lower flat where the school rooms etc, were, the middle flat which had the basketball courts, and the upper flat which had two baseball diamonds, more basketball courts, and a dirt field used for flag football. We would go go the upper flat with a bag of baseballs, a couple of bats and a few gloves. Dad would stand at home plate I would grab my glove and head out to third base and dad would start hitting ground balls to me one right after another. As soon as I picked up one and tossed it back another one would be coming at me five yards away.
Sometimes these drill went on for 45 minutes to an hour. I would begin to miss more grounders and soon became dejected. My father would yell out instructions which I mistook for mean criticism. Frustration would set in and tears would begin to from in my eyes.
One day this happened and my father took me aside and said, “Brooks why are you so upset?” I told him I didn’t like him shouting at me and it made me feel worthless especially when I kept missing the ground balls he was hitting.
Dad took a deep breath and responded. “Son, all those things I shout out to you are instructions to make you a better fielder. Everything I am asking you to do is called “constructive criticism.” You really should not be bothered by that. It will improve your skills. If I am just yelling at you and saying how poorly you are playing that that is just old fashioned of no use “criticism. You have got be be able to tell the two apart.”
Somehow my thin skinned psyche was able to digest this and I understood these words of wisdom. I never forgot this chat and would often remembered them while I was a substitute teacher. They were an excellent guide for me.
A few years later my father and I were talking and and I referred to someone as being stupid. I don’t remember the details but I do remember what my father said. He told me that calling someone stupid was a tremendous insult to that person. He went on to say that there were other words that could be used to get your point across without being so crass.
I didn’t argue with my father because somehow it seemed to make sense. I promised myself I would never use the six letter S word in referring to an individual. Following the years after our discussion I slowly began forming an opinion why this meant so much to my father.
Dad was born in Texas during the Depression and like millions of Americans money was tight to non existent. In order to work and help bring money in for food my father had to drop out of school . He never graduated.
His family moved to California and settled in the San Joaquin Valley working the fields that needed harvesting. I was told there times when my father lived in shacks with hard dirt for floors.
None of this mattered to my father. He went on to become not only a welder and machinist but an excellent welder and machinist. He began reading novels and anything that else piqued his interest. He taught himself how to write a decent sentence in a well written paragraph ,so he could write a l readable letter to some of his kin back home in Texas. My father then got married, bought a home, and started a family. This was all done without receiving one dollar from the government. Dad never bragged to me about this. Folks during the Depression knew there was nobody but themselves to rely on to make it.In my dad’s way of thinking you didn’t talk about it you just did it.
Because my father had to drop out of school so early there may have been a time when someone may have called him stupid. I don’t know how it would have affected him then but I think overall it certainly tinted the ways he eventually saw things. My father rarely showed emotion but I think back then the word stupid really had him hurting. I believe he vowed never to make someone else feel this way. My father never called anyone stupid. After he talked with me I never did either.
An uneducated man who had the wisdom of the ages. My father.
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Until March: Read a book, hug a child, pet a dog, stroke a cat, eat a bar of chocolate and IKIRU