0 and 2... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8TtSpqSdy4

And SALT...reflective, deeply so. Open and stunningly honest. I remember the first time I read Salt. Hearing it read, deepens the angst..and I know the taste..Thank you for opening up to us.

sorry that link keeps messing up. nere is a new one...

0 and 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVxXSHgb_JE

...from one to another....



thankyou.

I love all of your writing kc you are an inspiration and you always have been thank you so much for being who you are!!!

thank you miss sadie, jess and tiff

You are amazing

not really, but thank you....

Love hearing your words..Awesome..

Always on top of your keys,,nice to read ya again KC...

thanks ainjel and you too T


warm salt..... http://youtu.be/Iv9EMnelS6c

..kc..Warm Salt....Emotively beautiful..

Awww, thank you.
I wasn’t sure if I should or could do that one, but in the end I didn’t let that stop me from trying…

I'm glad you did - it is stunning

inspired
Sweat and Leather

always enjoy your stuff

7 Toys... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99mV9JEDzi8

I loved 7 Toys..You have such a way with words...Beautiful kc..

I love it when you come home and leave your footprints upon us

August 15, 1995 (The Death of Childhood)


As I sat listening to Bob Costas deliver a most heart- warming and wrenching eulogy. I couldn’t help, but recall the first time my father took me to Yankee stadium.

He is Dodger fan, so much so that, even though he doesn’t admit it, I have always felt it was the primary reason he moved to L A; to be near his beloved bums. However, I, along with every other kid in those days, had but one idol, Mickey Mantle. And so he took me to see him.

I remember him stepping out of the dugout that first time; how the whole stadium changed. It suddenly became smaller, as did everything when Mickey was around. He was a mountain of a man, especially to a young boy, and for me, he was an icon.

Mickey played first base that day, instead of his usual place in center field. As my father explained to me, the injuries had taken their toll. No longer was he the speedy, powerful, dominant and feared player he once was. But that didn’t matter; I was sitting in the Bronx, on hallowed ground in the house that Ruth built, next to my Father, watching my boyhood idol. It was a perfect day.

All I can remember about the game was that he struck out twice, but it was the way he struck out. Every time he swung, the entire crowd held its breath, awaiting the once often magic to happen again; only to release it, as one in a low pitched, agenizing groan.

For years, I played backyard games as Mickey and all throughout Little League I wore an old beaten tee shirt with that famed number 7, hand-drawn on the back.(Under my uniform.) In my head I secretly announced his name whenever I went to the plate. He and I won many World Series games together in that league during the long hot Southern California summers.

I learned later in life, he was not the person I made him out to be, he was not a good role model, nor was he a particularly good teammate. He was a poor father and an ever worse husband. He took the talent that he was given for granted and drank away most of his life; never coming to terms with his relationship between himself and his overbearing father. No matter how hard he wished he could and no matter how hard he tried.

Some years ago, I was in an airport down south, when I spotted him walking out of a bar. I did approach him and was quickly and rudely dismissed, or ignored rather. The next day at a trade show I bumped into him as he was exiting the elevator. He reeked of booze and pushed his way past everyone on his way to the little table they had setup for him to “meet and greet”. I, like so many that day, stood on line for a chance to speak with and perhaps even shake the hand of the man we so admired. But this was a shell of the former. I found him to be discourteous to say the least, not the icon I had grown up in awe of.

In his last few years he became a broken, angry sullen man, with an almost distain for the very public that embraced him as a national hero. It wasn’t until his liver quit on him that he began to try to right the many wrongs of his life.

By the end of the service I began to understand him much more. Not as a baseball player, but as a man. A man who had faults just like me. A man who almost waited too long to repair his relationships. A man who inspired a generation. A larger than life country boy, who got swallowed up by the game he loved so much.

August 15, 1995 was a day of great reflection, that once innocent boyish smile, the mammoth homeruns, the game saving catches. A day when old men wept like little boys; grown women wiped tears from their eyes, people in their 70’s, 60’s, 50’s, me in my 30’s, friends, Hall Of Famers, fans, together, in a sea of tears. We all joined to honor man who ultimately did the best he could, and though he didn’t always do the right thing, in the end, he did teach us all something. Not just about baseball, but more importantly, about life...

Saying goodbye to ole number 7 meant saying goodbye to the afternoon wiffle ball games with my cousins, gone too were little league try-outs and summer days in the park with all of my friends. It was goodbye to baseball cards and the sound they made in our spokes, when we put them on our bikes with clothes pins. It was goodbye to chocolate flavored Yoo-Hoo. (Oh how I loved those.) It meant goodbye to chasing fireflies and swimming in ponds. Goodbye to sitting in the stands with my dad and getting in trouble for listening to baseball games on my transistor radio late at night, when I was supposed to be asleep.

The Mick was laid to rest that day, and with him went yet another little piece of my childhood.