A Ripple On A Calm Surface
In the previous blog, Branch One, I mentioned that I have lived a life of challenges. Some I conquered without too much blood; others I did not summit wholly, but the jagged rocks and their scrapes did not stop me. Early in life, one has few choices; our parents make them for us. Convenient? One’s parents try to instill their values, rules, and ways of life to imprint these on our synapses forever. The success rate for that is open for interpretation. Parents make choices that can have far-reaching effects on their children’s lives for decades. For example, my father saddled up his horse and left town before I was born.
The tightly held secret, a heavy pressing weight on the family, seldom whispered, an unreachable secret, more often felt than spoken of. My father’s infidelity led to an affair with my mother’s best friend mere months before my birth, leaving me and my sister struggling as a living consequence of his actions. It is not a new storyline, but mine, and I must own it like a prominent birthmark. I was born a few days after an F4 tornado devastated a vast portion of my hometown, its violent winds leaving behind a scene of utter chaos. Seven people lost their lives that day. The incredible force of nature and my father’s profound betrayal were the start of my journey to the sea. My mother rose from the ashes of her marriage to the challenge of raising two children by herself. I spent my first seven years in a roughly converted garage. My father was a ghost, never seen or spoken of—a dark spectre. That ghost constantly haunted the room and our lives. My mother locked him forever in a dungeon, a dark secret that needed to stay chained away, as if you don’t speak of it…it does not exist. I remember one Christmas when I was about five, a present arrived: a drum set. No tag, strange looks from my sister and mother. No answer to the question of where this came from. Shortly, it disappeared as the continued sight of it caused problems. Secrets seldom remain hidden…my sister told me part of the story.
A young boy, skinny, too shy, with no father figure, struggled—severely scared ankles from boiling coffee, no father’s love or guidance, a recipe for endless questions and teasing. A new man entered my life when I was seven years old, a stepfather. Things looked up at first, but one’s issues all too frequently find a crack to bubble to the surface. The demon alcohol! A man who measured his adulthood in Export Ale and Buckingham cigarettes, as this was the measure of a man’s life, his statement of who he was. To be fair to him, there were some enjoyable moments. His father had alcoholism, most likely because of battle injuries from the First World War, where somehow, he survived six years of that endless, mindless bloodshed. His brother died in his mid-thirties in an alcohol-related car crash. Again, a secret.
At nine, I had my first brush with death. Immediately taken to the hospital after a doctor’s appointment with a raging kidney infection, most likely because of near-continuous second-hand smoke inhalation. My entire family smoked, and four of them paid the price for that, and early in life, so did I. Six months in the hospital or confined to a bed at home. Later, I was behind the curve at school and placed in special reading classes. Later that year, I was unjustly taken to the principal’s office and leather-strapped for an offense by the teacher’s pet. Age nine was brutal and left scars that probably still resonate.
Fast-forward a couple of years, and there was a moment. One’s life is an unscripted story of moments of different shapes and influences. This was a big one. The undersized, shy kid wanted to play baseball and signed up. There, he met his coach; he was young, just twenty years old. There was a radiating life in him. He could relate to the young thugs sometimes, and the quiet ones, in my case.
Mr. Bill Smith
In times long ago, the name Smith rang out night and day
One who hits or strikes in the Anglo-Saxon heritage
Blacksmiths breathe a pounding life of heat and fire
With mastery of the earth’s fires, artistically create
Something from lumps of coal for us to keep
Motionless in the green fields of dreams
Stood a young boy…no father to lead him forward
A small, quiet boy, alone and teased all the time
Head down, eyes searching the fields to find his time,
Standing there, frozen in time, yearning to play
Others were taller, stronger, and more alive that day
Bill Smith sized him up as the song Ragdoll played
As just a kid, the clothes were all hand-me-downs…
They all laughed at him when he came into town…
I’d change the troubled sight into a glad time if I could…
Timely lyrics of Frankie Valli etched the field that day
Bill Smith loved that song and hummed it all day
At that moment, a chance encounter set a boy in motion
The skinny kid was, at best, an average player, but
Blessed with a hidden grit and a quiet fire radiating inside
This kid, with Bill’s help, later stood tall on the field
Hit two home runs and earned a special drink one day
Time moved on; Bill Smith said his goodbyes.
Many more challenges ensued, remembering the early days
As a kid, turn the page on what is written in stone
Forward his rallying cry; always forward, no kneeling
Many thought this kid would not amount to too much
Told too often that he would never do that
This kid climbed mountains in howling gales to rise
And now, as he looks once more upon his past ground,
That moment in a green field… that helped that special day
A hand that reached out… take my hand, son
Helped build a rag-doll kid into one who can stand tall
I say to the Bill Smiths, who tirelessly offer themselves
You gave more than you knew; I am forever grateful for that.
The years have passed, and that time is now approaching six decades past. I often think of those days and what they meant to me. Too late, I fear I tried to find him again. That name is hard to trace. In the first blog, I included this…
It begins with me asking a question.
The question is…. If you had the right opportunity to make just one change in your life, what would that be? You have 5 seconds to answer. Try this on the first day of every month as you look at a sunset.
My answer would be to get the chance to express my thanks to Bill Smith. One of my biggest regrets is not telling him how much I appreciated what he did in those days on the fields and what it meant to me. A skinny branch trying to reach the sun needed guidance and nourishment to grow into a stout tree.
Years later, in my forties, I had the chance to work with young boys, becoming men on the fields of green for a decade. In 2022, I made a pilgrimage to the Field of Green, Fenway Park. My shadow in that journey or pilgrimage was my thoughts after losing my wife of 45 years, and I began writing the book The Lighthouse.
