Based on what I wrote yesterday, I should have known that someone close to me would die. Late yesterday afternoon, I found out that my Great Uncle Joe died.
To my regret, I did not grow up with Uncle Joe around me, though I wish I had. He was my mother’s mother’s brother-in-law. For someone who was of no blood relation to me, he may have been the closest to my heart. Joe is the passive part of my passion for baseball. My father is the active reason. When I was 7 years old, Joe gave me a worn baseball that was signed by the entire Yankee’s team in 1957. When he gave that to me, that was all she wrote. I was hooked… I remember the day he gave it to me as if it were yesterday. My family was in the midst of moving from New Jersey to Dallas. At the time, he and his wife lived in Roanoake, VA and on our way to Dallas, we stopped off at their house. We were there on a Friday into Saturday…and I believe we stayed through Sunday. When the Saturday Baseball Game of the Week came on, I was glued. I remembered it was the Pirates playing Philadelphia. I remember Omar Morena sliding into 2nd base – either a double or a stolen base – and he lost his helmet. I’d never seen anyone run so fast in my short life. When Joe saw the glee in my eyes, he ran off to a closet in a back bedroom and found that treasure from 1957. That he gave it to me, instead of holding on to it, shows what a truly unselfish person he was. In one person, he was an inspiration and an aspiration. Every time for the next 30 years that I saw Joe, he’d ask me about that ball. I used to joke with him about it, but can you imagine ever unloading something like that? In the last 80s, when he was nearing 80 himself, his beloved Margaret died. The Golden Girls – as we’ve since come to call them (their maiden name was ‘Golden’) – were a tough bunch. Hard as nails…and rarely yielding. They were also full of laughter. All the more when Joe was around… Joe was with Aunt Margie for around 50 years – maybe more, maybe less. But, he was ever-loyal to her. A fleeting trait in today’s times… When she did die, Joe did choose to live. He packed his entire remaining 20+ years (he was 96 after all) full of fun – one could sum up the time as ‘wine (nay, whiskey), women and song.’ Through all of this time of him dating Mert in Syracuse and another one in Niagra Falls, I think, and maybe another around Boston, he always had time and derived such joy out of the lot of us kids. He used to always say, ‘Margie and I never had kids, but we did have all you nieces and nephews.’ If memory serves, he was in triple digits at his death. The last time I saw him, about 3 weeks ago, he was telling a story about an Irish bar near his home in Pennsylvania. The first time he went, they went upstairs to one of the private dining rooms. Seeing how much fun all the kids were having at the bar downstairs, the next time they went back – mind you, he was 93 at this point – he insisted on sitting at or near the bar. I will be that way, if I am lucky enough to be kicking at 90+ years old. I know I touched on Joe’s love of the ladies. This was always a respectable smile, wink or a hug. There was never an ounce of perversion in anything he did…not even a hint. But he would flirt like a tiger… He really did love the ladies. When he died, he’d been in and out of the hospital a bit in the last 6 weeks or so. He was in good spirits, in spite of having lost loads of blood. When I saw him, at 96, he was still sharp as a tack. Sharper, even. He never made it home again, though. He was in the process of doing his PT…and he went to get up…lost his balance…and on his way down, was caught in the arms of a cute, young blonde. If he had to go, this would have been how he’d have written it. In the arms of a young blonde. Once again and all at once, aspirational and inspirational.