Sports, often an escape from, or a training for, or an enhancement of what we call “real life”. With the advent of the 2012 summer Olympics, it will be a source of national pride and an introduction to many fabulous young athletes from nations all around this globe. But for many Pennsylvanians, right now sport has given them a blow below the belt. The proud alumni and students of Penn State, who likely chose the institution because of its academic strengths, are reeling from the NCAA’s penalization of the football program. And that action will tarnish the reputation and financially affect the university for many years to come. It’s a shocker.
I’ve just returned from a very different sport-related weekend. Chuck and I have attended the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies for 27 years. We do this over and over again because it is a sport that we love, but also because we have come to know so many wonderful people who gather in the beautiful village of Cooperstown, NY, for this event. For us it is often like old home week when we get together. I’d like to share some of those people moments from our baseball weekend.
On the large front porch of the Inn at Cooperstown, where the guests gather and rock and swap tales, this year we met Hal McCoy, a Hall of Fame honored sports writer from Ohio. He is the man who created the name of “The Big Red Machine” for the Cincinnati teams of the 1970s and covered the Pete Rose story and the Marge Schott years. But we now know him as a personable man who has been declared legally blind since 2003 (strokes of the optic nerves) but was told by the Reds players that they would not let him retire as a writer, and they would help him with whatever he needed to do to continue. Not too many sports writers get that kind of love in return from their teams. He was in Cooperstown to cover the induction of Cincinnati’s own Barry Larkin.
Barry Larkin. I knew him only as a nemesis to the team that I love. I now know him as a man who could live his childhood dream of being a star, a rather dazzling one, on his hometown team. That’s what he talked about in his acceptance speech…but he delivered some of his speech in Spanish for the benefit of many of his gathered fans and those Hall of Famers whose roots are in the Caribbean or Central America. I wondered where this University of Michigan graduate’s fluency in Spanish came from. Hal McCoy told us that Barry taught himself the language when so many of his teammates were Latino and he wanted to be able to talk with them.
One of the guests at the Inn, named Jennifer, is a writer for the NY Times. She and her son come annually so that he can meet many of the players he idolizes. Jennifer, always toting a few laptops, hoped to spend this weekend writing fluff stuff about fans. Instead she worked from dawn until almost midnight on Saturday communicating with families of the victims of the horrible shooting in Denver. Her mission was to write the stories of those who had lost their lives, a lasting gift to their loved ones. When she wrapped it up late on Saturday, we shared a couple of bottles on wine on the porch and tried to talk of happier things.
Cooperstown has a fabulous summer opera company, Glimmerglass, as well as the famous Hall. Over dinner on Sunday night we began chatting with a man at the next table and soon learned that he is the director of the opera that had just debuted that afternoon, Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars”. His name is Tazewell Thompson. We had already heard that the opera had been received with many standing ovations from friends who had attended while we were at the induction ceremony. This very unassuming man had a very contented air about him, and we chatted about the benefits of the Metropolitan Opera’s live in HD series of operas (Tazewell is all for them),past operas we have enjoyed at Glimmerglass, his future projects…and the fact that we are both long-suffering New York Mets fans.
Sports–they can make us ebullient, and they can break our hearts and dash our spirits. And they are a common denominator, one that brings people together.

Two weeks late and two days early in blogging…my apologies for both. My excuses for lateness? Not sure that there are any that are acceptible.
We got a dog…but then so did Martha, and she still found time to blog.
I’ve been trying to keep my garden under control…picking, preserving, watering, weeding, deadheading, fertilizing, tieing up…but I wasn’t working in the garden 24/7. We had children and grandchildren visiting and made the most of every minute…but that was for just three wonderful days.
It’s been too hot…well, that seems to be a popular excuse and forgiveable for almost everything these days. I won’t bother with excuses for being early…afterall I didn’t catch you just getting out of the shower, and no one cares if you haven’t done your make-up yet. If it really bothers you, then please wait until Tuesday to read this.

Let me tell you about our dog. She’s an eight and a half year old Bernese Mountain Dog. Picture big, bearlike, lotsa curly fur, black with white and rust markings on her face and paws (and oh what paws).
Her name is Monah. We found her through a Berner rescue group in Maryland. We had had a Berner before, and they are truly gentle giants. When we had visited her in her previous home, we saw how attached she was to her people and place and so had some trepidations about how successful we would be in rehoming her. She had been a kind of celebrity in the town of Ellicott City, MD, since she was raised in a little shop and everyone in the town knew Monah. When her family found out that their son was allergic to her, it was difficult to find a new home because Berners just live an average of 7 to 9 years, and few people want to make the emotional and financial investment that an older dog requires given that time frame. But we fell in love with her, and I can say after our two weeks together that the feeling seems to be mutual. Whatever the time we will have with Monah, we will think of it as a fortuitious gift.

There’s a lot to be said for taking on an older dog: no puppy shenanigans, no chewing, no house breaking, no jumping up on visitors. Given her size, she cannot squeeze through our front gate or under the fence; she will not jump over the wall or need four-mile walks each day (pulling all the way) the way our last pup did. And old dogs seem to recognize when someone has opened a special place in their hearts for them. They give you unconditional love in return.

Happy Fourth of July! I’m not a flag waver – that is, I tend not to wear my patriotic pride on my sleeve, much as I also believe my faith is a private matter. My mother was a badge wearing member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She’d worked long and hard to trace her ancestry back to a soldier who fought for our independence. I was proud of her, but I was not interested in becoming a DAR. Weird, I know, but public displays of religion (i.e. holding hands and saying grace in a restuarant) and patriotism rather embarrass me. (Hey! Don’t be too critical. It’s a personal choice. I don’t mind others being demonstrative, but it’s just not my “thing.”)
Am I proud to be an American? You better believe it. I rather took my citizenship for granted until me moved to Italy, and I realized how coveted my American passport was. Suddenly I wanted my three year old daughter to remember the USA. I made a tiny American flag for her bureau in the hotel in which we lived until our furniture arrived. Every morning Meg and I would salute the flag and sing “My Country, ’tis of Thee.”
Soon after we arrived in Italy, the USA landed our first astronauts on the moon. The morning it happened, some Italian men who where in the bar of the hotel where we were living, came to our room and took us down to the bar where everyone was watching the landing. (No, the rooms didn’t have their own television sets.)They made a path through the crowd for us; one man hoisted Meg up on his shoulders so she could see better. When Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon’s surface, those Italian men applauded and cheered. Many cried! They all shook my hand and explained to Meg how lucky she was to be an American. At that moment I felt the wildest shot of pride in America that I’d ever felt. I realized what an honor it is to be an American.
Three weeks ago, I felt a similar feeling. We were eating at a restuarant in New York City. Our waiter told us he was from Kosovo. I told him I’d just read a book abour Kosovo. “Was it about the time of the trouble?” he asked. When I said it was, he said, “It’s much better there now. Thanks to the Americans!” Wow!
I have often thought how lucky I am to have been born an American woman at this time. Women in so many parts of the world are treated badly – VERY badly. By the sheer luck of the draw, I am not one of them. I have a wonderful home, plenty of food and clothing, an education that has kept me doing what I love – teaching. I have two children 3000 miles away – whom I can visit without ever having to show my passport! I have a husband who, in retirement, is free to pursue his interests – of which, I a proud to say, I am at the top of that list. There is so much more that being an American provides. Mostly I take it for granted, but today I need to recognize what a wonderful life America has given me. I AM a proud American! Happy Birthday, United States of America! You may not be perfect, but you’re the very best that this world has to offer. Of thee, I sing (quietly, but proudly.)