It was…? well, weird.

The last time i was a real sportswriter was in 1972 when i walked away from a wonderful job in a wonderful place, sports editor for The Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York. It was purely a financial decision in order to provide an adequate income for my wife and infant daughter.

i rejoined the Navy as a surface warfare lieutenant. It was the right decision, and i don’t regret it. However, i do often wonder what it would have been like to continue my career in sports journalism.

Regardless, i haven’t had the feeling like being a sports writer since July 31, 1972…until last night.

i have become a critic of sports at all levels because i think even at the youngest age level, sports are no longer “sports” but are focused on making them careers, very lucrative careers but still careers. Very few youngsters play multiple sports. Seasons overlap. Parents and hired athletic tutors teach youngsters all of the techniques and proper styles of sports. Playing football or baseball on an open field with bases and foul lines established by sweatshirts or old rags no longer exist. Some adult is supervising and safety is more important than fun.

This, of course, comes from an old curmudgeon whose last direct offspring quit playing organized sports or sports of any kind before high school. So, i really don’t know if some kids are sneaking around and playing some sport with just others their age and not spending that time on some electronic game device. Hey, the world is changing, but i think we’ve lost something.

i have morphed from watching every baseball, football, and basketball game, as well as tennis, soccer, and volleyball games i could find into watching only my teams, Vanderbilt sports and Padre baseball. Even with the sideshows of commercials, coaches, referrees and umpires, and rules intended to make the “games” more enjoyable to watch interrupting the pace of play and breaking the momentum of impressive runs of success (or dismal failure), there are some amazing athletes out there. They may have had more coaching, more training, more personal fitness, more psychological stress coaching than i ever had, they are still better than i could ever have achieved.

The old curmudgeon had pretty much forgotten about his time as a “sports journalist.” Until last night.

It was strange. i was watching the San Diego Padres playing the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League playoffs. i fully expected it to be the last game i would watch this season. The Brewers were likely to win their third straight, eliminating my Padres.

Maureen and i watch nearly every Padre game during the season. It’s a great way to spend an evening when one is retired and not into movies anymore (that’s me, not her). i’ve been a Padres fan since the first time i saw them in Jack Murphy Stadium in 1975. My buddy, Jim Hileman and i shared full season tickets for several years in the late ’80s, early ’90s, then went down to two 40-game season tickets, which i maintained until 2014.

Therefore, i am a bona fide Padre fan. Maureen is more excited about them than i am. She has to leave the television and go to bed and read when the final two or three innings are tight — then, if the Padres won, she wants me to find the replay so she can watch it when she already knows the outcome.

Consequently, she went to our bedroom at the end of the sixth inning. i sat alone with most of the lights out watching by myself. i found myself twitching in my chair, mumbling good and bad things depending on the play and sometimes at the risk of disturbing Maureen, bringing a Navy cuss word down upon the perpetrator’s head.

The Padres won 4-3 in a thriller. How they did it has been all over the sports media. I won’t describe it, but i will say the thrill of victory pulsated in our house this morning and undoubtedly in households where the Padres are the favorite.

Yet, there was this strange thing happening to me. As the game progressed, i began to feel the objectivity of a sports writer returning.

Objectively, that was one of the best baseball games played the way i think it should be that i’ve seen in the past 30 years or more. Both teams pitched exceptionally well. They both played small ball with bunts, steals, and hit-and-run plays. The defense of both was incredible.

Had the Brewers pulled it out and won, i would have been a bit disappointed, but i was elated i was allowed to see such a wonderful game played the way baseball should be played (in my mind).

Holding true to my curmudgeon image, i must say at the end of the 5th inning i turned down the volume to where i could hear the crowd noise and could hear the announcers but it was too low to hear what the announcers were saying. In the bottom of the 5th, the Brewers shortstop Pratt was on third, their hitting hero Chourio hit a short fly ball to left field. The Padre’s left fielder, Dustin Harris, caught the fly, and the center fielder Jackson Merrill backed him up. Harris took two steps and fired to home plate too late. Had he taken just one step, he might have gotten Pratt out. But he took too.

One of the announcers proclaimed Harris shouldn’t have caught the ball, that he should have stepped aside to allow Merrill to catch the ball because he was the better outfielder. I not only found the comment stupid but insulting.

The trio had been spouting drivel all night, usually denigrating a player (either side) because they knew better than the players on the field. The stupid comment about Harris finally drove me to shut them down. Fox Sports should be ashame for having such BS on the air. Sadly, it’s the other networks also, especially ESPN. i will have the volume where i had it last night for tonight’s contest.

i’m also thinking about installing a seat belt on my chair just in case tonight’s game is a good as last night.

As i mentioned in my previous post this evening, i was considering posting the last section of my “book” of Willie Nod including a few other things. i’m pretty sure i will keep for my family, not publish.

i previously have posted many of those poems and such here. This, almost surely, will be the last posted and the last in that “book” of mine.

i think it well captures my thoughts on many things, especially what’s good in this world of ours.

Willie Nod the Elder

Jake Wilson eventually retired from the Navy and continued to live in Newport, Rhode Island. One summer, an old Navy friend, Johnson Hicks, invited him to visit in his home outside of Watertown, New York.

When Jake made it to Alexandria Bay where Johnson lived, Jake fell in love with the tall boat houses. Italian food, lovely neighborhoods, the Saint Lawrence River, and the Thousand Islands. The two of them had a great time.

Jake returned in winter and loved it. A discussion between the two led to Johnson talking about an old man who had recently bought and moved to one of the Thousand Islands. He was a hermit and rumored to live with a mix of animals. He had been seen once or twice when he came by boat in the summer and an old pickup in the winter  when the water froze to a market in Alexandria Bay for provisions, but eventually hired a young ‘un to pick up his goods and bring them to the island. Johnson said he had an odd name, “Nod or something.“

Jake realized the man was most likely Willie Nod, the man who lived in the hut by Easton Bay in Newport, Rhode Island years ago. Jake got directions from his friend on how get to the island on the ice and drove there in late January.

He went up into the woods after seeing smoke coming from the middle of the woods. He hailed the cabin and Willie Nod came out. Willie recognized Jake immediately and waved for him to come to the cabin. When Jake got there, he was surprised when Willie hugged him.

“Boy, I ain’t seen you in ages. How you been?”

Jake gave him a recounting of his retiring and living in Newport. Then, he asked Willie, “How have you been?”

Willie told Jake he must first meet his friends. After he made some strange sounds, animals gathered there from the house and the woods. Willie pointed them out:

“This is McCaslin, he’s a Newfoundland; he came with me from my old place. This is BK, a cat. Over here is Honkers. He landed out on the water with his gaggle and decided to stay here.

“Peeking around the door is Uncle Jim, the rabbit. He, too, was on the island when I got here.

“That big guy over there who was standing near Jake is Booger Bear.

“Now, let’s go inside and have some tea and catch up.”

Jake willingly agreed. Once inside the small one-room cabin, Willie put the kettle on the wood stove, which he later explained had a fire all of the time except in the summer as it was not only the cooking stove but heated the room as well.

When the water was boiling, Willie poured it into the two cups that he had placed a tea bag into each one. He joined Jake sitting at the wooden table. The table and the decor reminded Jake of that hut on the beach rocks in Newport long ago.

First, Jake told Willie how he loved the Navy but retired as commander because he knew he would not be able to drive ships if he was promoted and remained the service. He described the small, centuries old home he had on Prospect Street near the dining area of the town and how he enjoyed the seaside feel of the town.

It was Willie’s turn to update Jake. He told of his wife with great affection and his friendship with Griswold and his wife. Then, he told how his son Leopold had nothing to do with him, which was somewhat assuaged by he and his granddaughter Lil becoming close.

He related how Lil grew up and stayed close to him. When she got married, Willie sat in the back of the church and didn’t reveal to Leopold he had been there for the ceremony. Shortly after the wedding, his granddaughter and her husband moved to Florida.

Since he had no friends left there, Willie found and bought one of the Thousand Islands when it came on the market. He had his belongings shipped to the island. He and McCaslin, the Newfoundland moved into the cabin, which was already there in the woods, and settled in. He and McCaslin shortly began to meet all of his new friends, the cat, goose, rabbit, and bear.

Jake gave Willie some thoughts of sympathy for Willie Nod’s dark times, but Willie Nod shrugged it off.

“It comes with the territory if you live with humans. They just can’t help messing things up. It’s became part of their nature when ironically, they became civilized.

“I finally figured out i don’t like ‘em very much, present company excepted. If they thought about it, which they never will, they are a lot more like animals than they know.”

Without missing a beat, Willie kept right on expounding, “The big difference now is the animals’ natural instincts of fear of the unknown is part of survival. Their reaction to that fear is anger, resulting in them attacking the threat they perceive or or fear and fleeing from it. It’s for survival. Humans don’t need that any longer, but they still have the fear and the reactions of fear, anger, and hate. That screws everything up.

“i just don’t want to deal with that anymore.”

Jake asked, “But what about your friends the animals here? If they trust you, won’t that make them vulnerable when they go back into their habitat?”

Willie Nod shrugged again. “No, because of my luck with being able to talk to animals when i got on the island these critters kept showing up. McCaslin and i agreed to require an understanding of an oath and requiring all of them to agree to it.

“So, when one of the guys showed their head the first time, we established our requirement. We told them of the requirement that they should return to their natural state when they went back to the woods . They were to remain wild and natural and not take our relationships out there.” Willie Nod nodded his head toward the window.

“Do you think it works?” Jake asked.

“Oh, it works great,” responded Willie Nod, “We all agree that this is the way it should be. And they still want to be my friends.

Jake looked at his watch, “Willie, it’s getting late. i need to get back to Alexandria Bay to my friend’s place. i have to leave early tomorrow morning and get back to Newport.

“I’ve been thinking a lot this afternoon. I love this place and your friends. i wish i could stay and learn to talk to your friends. It is a lovely place with wonderful animals just the way it is.”

Willie Nod started to say something, but Jake held up his hand and continued. “However, I don’t wish to disturb what you have here for you and the animals. I might not ever gain the talent you have for talking to them. That, my dear friend would make me an interloper, a representative of all that’s wrong in the other places on earth where there are people.”

“I think you are really wise and I appreciate your wisdom,” Willie Nod responded, “If you can come back for a morning or afternoon, I, McCaslin, BK, Honkers, Uncle Jim, and Booger Bear would love to see you again.

“But don’t feel obligated. We all are fine here and plan to be here for a long time.”

Jake nodded, arose from the table. He shook hand or paw or rub heads where appropriate. He turned and hugged Willie Nod.

“If there is any way possible, I will be back” Jake said as he walked to the edge of the cabin’s clearing. When he reached the woods, he turned back to look. Willie Nod and all  of the animals were waving goodbye.

Jake returned the wave and walked into the woods. As he walked through the woods, he realized that after all of the waves, Booger Bear had winked at him.

i hope you enjoy it.