A Memorable Memorial

Monday May 25th, 2009 - Milwaukee, WI

I’ve said it before and I meant it - one thing I will never joke around about is how I have the utmost respect and gratitude for my freedoms as an American. I know there was a cost paid by countless soldiers who gave their lives in battle. There’s nothing funny about that.

It’s very easy to lose that fact and I almost did today as I was in traffic and some old fart was taking up every lane on the road with his Buick road yacht and pissing everyone off. I was in a hurry and so was everyone else but this dude wasn’t about to let any of us pass.

Finally when I was able to make my way around him I noticed he had Disabled Veteran plates on his car and I backed off from blasting on the horn. He had glasses about as thick as the bullet proof steel in the tank he was driving and his remaining days on earth looked to be in the low single digits. The last thing I need is a war with Wilford Brimley‘s father.

I wondered whether this guy was a war hero and protected several generations with the things he did on the battlefield in WWII or was he some slug who tripped and fell drunk as he was stealing wallets from dead Germans? Either way he was at the end of his line.

I didn’t think it was my duty to blast the horn and flip off someone who may have had a rough life because he had to go fight in a war when he was 18. I support the troops always but I will never support any war. I think it’s stupid and ugly and nobody is ever a winner.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of people I’m not fond of and if a few of them took a bullet or sixty I wouldn’t shed many tears. What I’m saying is I don’t want to be the one to do the shooting. I think the best way to ‘win’ any war is to stay away from an enemy.

That may not work in all scenarios but on paper it surely does. If everyone stays in their own country and handles their own situations there would never be any wars. If the Arabs and the Jews would both agree to leave the Middle East forever the bullets would all stop flying and maybe we could focus on living productive lives instead of killing each other.

‘Holy land?’ My ass. Shouldn’t ALL land be holy? If God made the whole planet there shouldn’t be any place holier than the next but that’s my own opinion and evidently it’s a view that isn’t shared by many others - at least not those in charge of the war department.

Think of all the people who would have been able to live good lives who got shot down before they had the chance. I know I sound like a hippie idealist but I mean it. It makes an unbelievable amount of sense to me and if it were so we wouldn’t need a Memorial Day.

All those people wouldn’t have been snuffed out. Maybe that old coot who made traffic a living hell today would have not had to go to war and in turn not been so stressed so as he wouldn’t have had to buy such a big Buick that blocked so many people on a nice day. But I digress. What the hell do I know anyway? I know this is Memorial Day and war is a reality and people did give up their lives so I could write these words freely. Thank you.

The reason I was in traffic was because I was going to the Milwaukee Brewers game at Miller Park against the St. Louis Cardinals. I haven’t been to a game in a while and it was a nice day so I decided to call the woman I like in Milwaukee and see if she wanted to go.

I know she likes baseball and was off from work and she has a six year old son and two teenage daughters who also love the Brewers. She’s been stressed out at work lately and it isn’t easy for her to take the kids to a game so I wanted to spread a little kindness around.

The tickets were pretty expensive but they were excellent seats and I put it on my credit card so the pain won’t kick in for at least a month. Only one of her daughters could go but she was thrilled to be asked and her son brought his glove and was in his own little world. We sat in the sun and enjoyed the game and it almost felt like the family I always wanted.

A lady next to me opened her purse and took out a Tootsie Pop sucker and gave it to me and said “Give this to your son.” She assumed it was my family and I have to say it really felt good to hear her say that. I thanked her and just tried to enjoy the whole experience.

I totally did. Yes it will cost me some money I don’t really have right now but the vibe was very positive the whole day. I bought a program and had us all sign it and they liked that idea a lot. I told them to save it and have something to look at many years from now.

It wasn’t easy sitting at a ball game with a teenage girl and a six year old boy as they did what teenage girls and six year old boys do. The girl was taking pictures constantly of the players she thought were cute and was extremely upset that J.J. Hardy didn’t play as he is her love crush of all time for this week. She’s a sweet kid though and she really loved it.

The six year old boy was bouncing off the walls as all of them do and couldn’t sit still a single inning. He ate snacks the whole day and one of them was cotton candy which shot his sugar level to the moon but again that’s part of being a little boy. I know he had fun.

It tested my patience a little but it also was a lot of fun to just sit and hang out and be in a position I don’t get to be in all that often. I’m not the kids’ dad and I’m not the woman’s husband but I got to play the role for a day and I really enjoyed it. It’s something I’ve had a big desire to do my whole life and I know it’s not all fun and games but for a day it was.

After the game we went to her house and I played catch with the kid for a while as pizza was baking in the oven. The kid couldn’t throw it anywhere near me so it wasn’t really an actual game of catch for about ten minutes but eventually we straightened it out and got a little rhythm going. I showed him how to throw and catch and he caught on very quickly.

The whole scene felt REALLY good. The first time I told him he made a good catch his eyes lit up and I realized we’d already played longer than I ever had a chance to play with my own father who never threw even one ball with me. Ever. I can’t change that now but I can at least say for a day I got to act like a dad and I liked it. We’ll see if it goes farther. The woman and I are just taking it easy and seeing where it goes. So far it’s going well.