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The day before my ninth birthday my dad called me into his room and pulled a present out from beneath the mattress.  It was a new Wilson baseball glove with “George Brett” written across the palm.  He was getting a head start on breaking it in for me.  He had some glove conditioner ready to go, and we branded it on the stove, which was our way of distinguishing our equipment from anyone else’s.

I was as enthusiastic about baseball then as I have ever been in my life.  My dad and I played catch every evening until it was too dark to see the ball.  We lived 400 miles from the closest major league baseball team, but I thought about the sport constantly.  I played little league ball in a park right on the shore of Old Tampa Bay, and at night it was refreshing to be by the water.  The park is still there, but the baseball diamond is long gone.  I played several different positions, but I remember being in the outfield mostly.  I usually could make contact with the ball, even if I wasn’t an especially powerful batter.  I remember a kid on my team hit a homerun over the fence once and I was amazed.  It seemed like it went a mile, though I am sure it wasn’t more than 200 feet.

When I was little I did manage to see a few major league games at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta.  I distinctly remember seeing the Cubs vs. Braves ca. 1985.  And I got to see lots of spring training and minor league games close to home.  My dad would get us box seats, and we’d watch the Reds at Al Lopez Field in Tampa (here’s a neat film of that park from 1984); the Phillies at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater; the Blue Jays at Grant Field in Dunedin; and, best of all, the Cardinals at Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg.  It wasn’t expensive, and you could get close to the action.  Plus, since the crowds were sparser, you could sometimes snag a foul ball that landed in your vicinity.

When I was young I didn’t have much hope that a major league team would move to our area for regular season play.  Every few years there would be talk that an existing team would move to St. Petersburg or Tampa, but the truth was that these teams were really just using us to get leverage in their home towns to get new stadiums.  Then, in the late 1980s, St. Pete, against the advice of MLB, built a dome.  I remember going on opening day, March 3, 1990, when it was called the Florida Suncoast Dome.  There was then no indication that baseball would come to town.  It took eight years before the Devil Rays took the field.  Even then, the dome required extensive renovations.  I remember there being a good deal of outrage that a park built for baseball was so unsuited for the sport.  It was very poorly designed. But I have been to several games at what is now called Tropicana Field, and though the building is soulless–like a giant warehouse–it’s comfortable and clean.  Wrigley Field is magical, but it’s small and you are really crowded in there.  When somebody in your row needs to get out you have to stand up. That happens every minute and a half. And The Trop is a good value.  When I went last season, tickets were $5 and parking was free.  You were even allowed to bring certain outside food, though I opted for the concession stand.  It was just depressing to see such small crowds.

But now we are in a new age.  Tonight the Rays will face the Red Sox for the American League title.  I am nervous, of course, but hopeful.  The Rays have played so well, and if they get off on the right foot, Boston won’t get the energy from the fans like they would at Fenway, and will be less likely to stage a big comeback like they did on Thursday night.

So, the boy who never thought there’d be big league ball in his town will tonight watch his home team take on a storied and favored opponent.  (I know the Red Sox are favored by the radio and television and newspaper covereage this series has received.)  I’ll watch the game on TV, of course, but if I could be there I’d look a lot like the other boys in the bleachers:  I’d have a wide-eyed expression of amazement at being witness to the most perfect sport, and I’d be wearing the baseball glove that my father gave me 23 years ago today.

I was just outside watering the flowers in front of the house when the cool breeze and sunlight shining through the oak trees mixed with the sound of bluejays, and made me feel for a moment as though I were back at the site of my most sacred childhood memories–my grandparents’ old house in Dade City–on an Easter Sunday.

How is it that our memories make us feel at once so young and so old?

Nostalgia–a subject on which I consider myself something of an authority by way of experience–is a curious thing.  The general sufferer of nostalgia loses countless hours in (often sad) reflection of his own life, and imagines his former days to have been idyllic, glossing over the mundane or unpleasant aspects thereof.  The advanced nostalgist does this, but also extends his scope of reverie to encompass ages in which he never lived, and places he has never visited.  He practically invents the details of this world of which he laments the loss.  He never lived in Paris in between the wars, or a small American town in the 1950s, or London in the nineteenth century, but he involuntarily goes to great mental lengths to imagine it.

For the latter sort of nostalgist, articles like the one in today’s New York Times–about the vanishing barns of Iowa, and the changing character of farm life there–simply offer fuel for the fire.

There aren’t many dates before I met Miriam where I can be certain what each of us were doing separately; June 6th, 1994 is one of the few.

On that day, the 50th anniversary of the allied invasion of Europe, Miriam was in Normandy on a class trip.

It was the last day of my junior year of high school. I distinctly recall my English teacher, Mr. Marks, writing “D-Day” on the chalk board. I also remember one of the jocks in the class casually calling me “a freak”. I had never thought of myself as being different from anyone else. I also recall that the girl with whom I was obsessed (and over whom had suffered considerable angst) asked a guy I considered a close friend whether he and I would be hanging out over the summer. My feelings were hurt when, without hesitation and sounding almost offended, he said, “no!” I had never felt less popular.

Gainesville is in the grips of Pop Mayhem this week, and in spite of my general avoidance of all things social/nocturnal, I actually got out twice to see shows and old friends. My oldest friend Steve (file photo) had quite a bit of success in a band called Brittle Stars with mutual friends Josh and Dan and a singer named Estelle. I attended their very first show in the summer of 1998, but moved away soon thereafter, missing every other performance until their last, on New Year’s Eve 2000 (i.e., going into 2001) at The Wayward Council on University Avenue. So, I sadly missed the heyday of the Brittle Stars, and to this day have never even heard their album (released on the Shelflife label). So, what nice news to hear that the Brittle Stars would reunite for two shows in Gainesville, going so far as to fly Estelle in from her current home in Tel-Aviv.

On Wednesday evening Brittle Stars played at The Wayward Council (photo gallery), and in spite of that store’s tiny size and poor climate control, it’s really a pleasant place to see music, because there is no separation between the band and the audience. In spite of several years’ hiatus, they sounded much like I remember them, and the show, though only a half hour in length, was charming. In fact, that’s the best word I can think of to describe Brittle Stars. They aren’t a band of sophisticated musicians (though Steve is undoubtedly the most naturally talented guitarist I know), but the music doesn’t demand virtuosity. In fact, on the contrary, it demands subtlety and a kind of endearing simplicity. As though to emphasize the notion that you’re listening to the songs and the feelings they evoke, and not hollow showmanship or pompous affectations, the songs are almost all under three minutes. They start, give you a pretty melody and finish quickly, barely giving you enough time to absorb what you’ve heard before another tune begins. It’s a refreshing contrast to the haughtily ostentatious bands that offer all manner of pomp and pageantry, but little reward, and certainly nothing approaching a genuine song. The Avant-garde is all well in good for a momentary diversion, but in the end I think it demonstrates a certain contempt for the audience.

The Brittle Stars’ second show this week was on Thursday night at Common Grounds, and it was very well attended, even at a vulgar $11 per ticket. The audience was affectionate and the band sounded well. There was even a massive rock-out at the end with the band augmented by a tambourine and Josh’s lovely wife Tanya played bass so Dan could get his guitar on. We saw lots of friends new and old, which was confusing for me, since I recognized faces, but found it hard to recall the context of my memories. Jeff and Sandi deserve credit for driving an unreasonable 12 hours round trip to watch Thursday’s show. I headed home earlier than Miriam, but she stayed and had a marvelous time, which I think boosted her spirits.

Alas, on Monday it’s all back to normal.