Epilogue … Next Year in the Garden

[This is it, Dear Reader, the final installment in this account of one extra-ordinary life. If you’ve taken the journey with me over the past few weeks, let me know how the experience has been for you. It’s taken me 76 years to live this life (so far) and several years to put it into this form. Please take five minutes to let me know your thoughts. Either put them in “Comments” where they will be shared with other Silverbacks. Or, send them to me privately. I’m already at work on Volume 2! Thank you. SM]

Delusions of Grandeur

There have been a number of significant portals in this Boomer’s life. There have been the cultural doors that we’ve all experienced–Elvis, the assassinations, the Beatles, the draft lottery, the Berlin Wall, and 9/11/01.  Overlaid on these are the personal doors. Arriving on the Yale Campus as a Van Gogh, and becoming Midshipman Morris the next day. 1971 was the watershed year, for music and personally, as well. The choice between Vermont and Vieques was another. Parenthood, divorce, and getting fired (three times!) are others. But the constant has been “the other door” that has subsequently appeared. It will be the same with death. I’m confident of it.

Reunion tour for The Van Goghs?

Doors open and close within the connective tissues, as well. With Post Island, the door never entirely closed, but the connection ebbed and flowed like the tides. As the cottage survived hurricanes, nor’easters, and snow storms, bending, but never breaking, my connection became sporadic. My parents retired there, living in the other house that was built by my grandfather, so there’s always been occasion to visit. In the past ten years, however, I’ve found myself becoming delightfully reconnected with the community. It served as the model Indian Mound, the setting in my novel “Stripah Love.” My neighbors are Bobby Pearson (the same one) and Stevie Hawes, the little squirt who grew up on Poplar Avenue. The bay has been cleaned up, the striped bass are back, the sewage treatment plant has been closed. And my cousins now return each summer to celebrate being on the right side of the ground. 

In music, The Beatles just marked the 50th anniversary of their appearance on Ed Sullivan. For my most recent birthday, my son Jacob gave me a capo for my guitar. This musical strand definitely stretches across generations and connect us. This book, which pivots on my fictional two-part interview in Rolling Stone. I can hear Sandy saying “You couldn’t be satisfied with merely a cover story and one-part interview? What other self-aggrandisements do you claim?”

I’m glad you asked.

Beer, of course. Would America have set the new world standard for beer drinking if not for The Great Beer Trek? I don’t think so.

Would the world still be careening towards environment collapse had it not been for the yeoman’s world you did with Vermont Castings, Real Goods, and Chelsea Green? No, but let’s not claim victory yet. Saving an entire planet takes time, don’t you know?

Would despondent garage band veterans be without a glimmer of hope if not for Old Rockers? Don’t be ridiculous … no!

Is there no end to this man’s delusion? Is there possibly anything else for which he is going to claim credit?

What else would you expect from a man who titled his second published book The King of Vermont? You forgot the Red Sox winning the World Series.

The Red Sox finally winning a championship!! … how were you possibly part of that?

I haven’t told you that story? Here goes … The Red Sox suffered under the Curse of the Bambino, blowing championship opportunities in 1946, 1948 (coincidentally the year I was born), 1967, 1975, 1987, and, most painfully, 2003. They finally succeeded in 2004, and have gone on to win championships three times since. What was the key to opening this door that had been locked for 87 years?

That would be me. Or more correctly “me” and Donahue, or more correct grammatically, Donahue and I. He’s the fictional character whose name in real life is John O’Donnell and who was my neighbor and fellow Red Sox junkie in West Brookfield.

The Year We Broke the Curse

STILL CHAMPIONS

And then one year, they did us proud.

Summer is so precious here in the North Country. We cling like rejected lovers to those last moments of buttery sunshine. We glory in the bounty of the summer’s harvest. We wallow in the rituals of the Tunbridge Fair, the Milk Bowl, and the final strand of summer–the World Series.

Vermont holds a special status in the Red Sox Nation. We are a divided state–chucks and flatlanders, Yankee fans and Red Sox faithful. Is it coincidence that the state’s most famous baseball son, Carlton Fisk (born in Bellows Falls) insists on calling New Hampshire “home?”

Red Sox fans in the Green Mountains are like junkies. They can recognize each other by the desperate look in the eyes. A nod speaks a thousand words. Covert meetings are arranged. Soulful itches are scratched.

“What did you think of last night?”
“What could Shilling have been thinking? An 0-2 pitch across the plate? He had at least two pitches to waste.”
“It’s a macho thing. The splitter’s been his out pitch all season.”
“That’s fine, but does he have to throw it over the plate? Get him to chase it.”
“Pedro was the same way. I thought it was a Latino thing.”
“What could he have been thinking?”

The conversations take place in aisles at the grocery story, while filling up at the quick stop, or between pick-ups, facing opposite ways, stopped in the middle of a dirt road. My own Red Sox needle swapper is a neighbor who will be identified only as “Donahue.” He moved to Vermont from the Boston area many years ago, and he has the proverbial map of Ireland on his face and Southie twang to his voice that marks him as a Red Sox lifer. I don’t see him a lot, but when I do, the ritual is always the same, fifteen minutes or so of detailed Sox analysis followed by a perfunctory inquiry about the state of the family, or maybe the weather. It’s been this way for, oh, the past twenty years.

I was driving by Donahue’s house in October, 2004. He was in his garage, throwing around junk and looking generally disgusted. This I could understand, as the previous night the Red Sox had lost their third straight to the Yankees in the playoffs. More humiliatingly, the score had been 19 to 8. For a Sox fan, this was a new low.

I rolled down the window and said something along the lines of “Whaddya think?”
“I’m done!” said Donahue, his lips tight and his jaw set. “I mean it! I’m done.”

“What … what do you mean …done?” I stammered.
“What do you not understand about ‘done’? I mean finished, kaput, fini. I am not putting up with it any more. It finally came to me last night. We’re like battered wives with alcoholic, abusive husbands. We get the shit beat out of us night after night, season after season, and the next day he comes back and says ‘Oh, honey. I’m sorry baby. It will never happen again. I promise …’”

Donahue stopped only long enough to throw a length of 2 x 4″ against the wall. “But last night I finally realized. It’s never going to stop so long as we keep letting it happen, as long as we keep letting them back in. It’s OUR fault this keeps happening, because we are the ones who keep opening the door. But not me and not any more! The door is slammed shut, because I am done! I am not getting battered by the Red Sox any more! And I’m not watching that goddamn game tonight.” Another piece of wood hit the garage wall. This one even harder. He turned away. The discussion was over.

I drive off, too shocked to reply. Donahue … “done” as a Red Sox fan? You can shave your head, grow a beard, change your address or political affiliations, but you can’t change your DNA, and isn’t that where the heart of the Red Sox gene resides? Isn’t that how my daddy raised me? And his daddy before him? Don’t my sons wear the blue, red, and white? Do I want them to live lives of frustration, as I have, because my preferred team has gone 87 years without winning the championship is what is, after all, a silly game?

I mull over Donahue’s declaration. I understand and share his pain. And he’s a guy of unquestionable loyalty and integrity. But to give up? It was Bill Buckner, not the Buddha, who taught me about humility in life. It was Bucky (insert swear) Dent who defined “vale of tears.” Can you dismiss a lifelong quest, a crusade by saying “I’m done?” On the other hand, there was a logic, a foundation of wisdom, a truth to his conviction.

Donahue had stated flatly that would not be watching tonight’s game 4 of a 7 game series. I envied his strength and conviction. After debating it in my mind the entire day, I grabbed the remote … and … opened … the … door.

When it seemed that things could not get any bleaker for the Red Sox, things got bleaker. After coming within a few outs of defeating the Bronx Bombers in 2003 American League Championship Series, now they stood on the brink of being swept. No team in history had come back from being down 3-0 to win a best of seven series. Suddenly it was the eighth inning and Mariano Rivera, the Yankees’ closer was brought in to shut things down as he had so many times before.

Rivera was one of a new breed of Yankee who performed with class and dignity, making it impossible to personally despise him. Ditto Derek Jeter. Granted, A-Rod is a good, old-fashioned asshole, a throwback to when the entire Yankee organization from owner to batboy were detestable to the core.

Rivera immediately shuts down the heart of the Red Sox order, including a strike out of David Ortiz. Uh, another gut punch. As the bottom of the ninth arrives, with the Red Sox three outs from another humiliation. I stand up.  Donahue was right. We’re like battered wives, letting the abusive husband back in the door. Not any more. I am making my stand.

“I will not bear witness to this,” I say to the television, “I will not watch jubilant Yankees swarm the pitcher in celebration. I will not watch them in the locker room, spraying each other with champagne!  I am closing the door!” With that I click the remote and toss it onto the sofa, not quite as dramatic as had Donahue’s violent toss of the 2 x 4”, but the same underlying conviction and sentiment.

“Get out!” I hiss, then take to my bed, clinging to a fragile tendril of dignity. “I’m done!”

The rest is history. Donahue (presumably) and I awoke the next morning to discover that literally moments after I tossed the remote onto the couch, the Red Sox started on what has been called the greatest comeback in sports history. It extended through the next three games against the suddenly hapless Yanks, then continued unabated through a perfunctory four game route of the St. Louis Cardinals.

It took me only nano-seconds to jump back on the Red Sox bandwagon, and no one cheered more gut-wrenchingly when The Curse had officially ended. While some, to this day, still credit the clutch hitting of Ortiz, Damon, and Ramirez or the gutsy pitching of Schilling, Martinez, and Lowe, I know, and now you know, that it was really two courageous guys in Vermont who stood up and broke the cycle of abuse. Through our courage, through our strength, and conviction, redemption was found for millions of members of Red Sox Nation.

Without Donahue … without Morris there is no Dave Roberts steal of second; there is no clutch hit from David Ortiz; there is no Curt Schilling and the bloody sock; there is no heroic performance by Derek Lowe; there is no two-homer shutdown by Johnny Damon; there is no four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the Series.

Had Donahue and I not had the courage to just-say-no, it all ends with Kevin Millar striking out against Mariano Riviera. It ends with Dave Roberts still on the bench rather than joining Bernie Carbo and Dave Henderson as the brightest lights in the Pantheon of Red Sox history.

We … Donahue and I … are the ones who broke the curse. And we did it for you, Red Sox Nation.

Lest we forget … and I’ve said this before.

It was a couple of weeks later, after the champagne and the Duck Boat parade, when I ran into Donahue at the landfill. I was about to close my car trunk and head home. “Hey, we did it!” I chortled. Donahue and I shook hands, two loyal fans after a lifetime of service, .

“And the best thing is, we’re champions at least until next October. The Curse is broken.” He laughed.

“Ironic that the two biggest Red Sox fans in Vermont missed the magic moment,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Donahue looked bewildered.

“Roberts’s steal of second,” I returned. “The biggest moment in Red Sox history, and we missed it.”

“I didn’t miss it,” Donahue said getting back into his truck. “What kind of fan do you think I am?” He drove away, back to reality, leaving me to linger at the landfill, my mind suddenly swarming with thoughts, sounds, images, and implications. I … didn’t … miss … it. Like the minions in Red Sox Nation, he was prepared for yet another in an endless string of humiliations while I, alone, pressed the remote and went to bed. The penny dropped, the lock clicked. I did it. Me … I … whatever. The Red Sox hat that Charlie Johnson gave me, but that I would only wear when the Red Sox were at bat, “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you,” the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, February 9, 1964, looking down at the National Guard from my dorm room on May Day, 1970, James Lovelock seeing Earth from outer space and saying “It’s alive!” It suddenly all came together … the writing, the woodstoves, Vermont’s crappy weather … a butterfly flaps its wings in China and leads to a thunderstorm in Ireland … It’s all related. For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Play loud, play fast … Nova Scotia … I did it. I broke The Curse. I … little Steppy Morris, had the courage to turned off the remote. I was the butterfly in China making it rain in Ireland.

I closed the trunk of my car and drove home from the landfill. One extra-ordinary guy.

********************

Next Year in the Garden

“You should write more poetry,” said Sandy one day in the garden. She’s always after me to write poetry. but I don’t “get” poetry in the same way I don’t “get” NASCAR. What, exactly, is poetry?

A short while, forty-five minutes by my estimation, I was back to her with this:

Part I–Spring, Famous Last Words

Next year in the garden I won’t plant my seeds too early just because I am excited by a warm day in April. I will wear a long sleeve shirt while pruning roses, raspberries, and blackberries. I will open seed packets the right way so that they reseal. I won’t just rip off the tops, then wonder why my pockets are filled with spilled seed.

Next year in the garden I will read the instructions before planting the seeds. That is, I will read the instructions IF I remember my reading glasses. Gardening is yet one more activity that now requires those damn things.

Next year in the garden I won’t read the newspapers as I lay down the mulch, and I will take off my muddy boots before coming into the kitchen.

I won’t shout “Ignition!” when I see the first green dots of germination. I won’t pump my first and say “Yes!” when green shoots of garlic poke through the hay. I will take it in stride, with the right stuff of the Master Gardener that I am.

Want to see my certificate?

Next year in the garden I will keep detailed records of what I do, when, and where. I won’t mark planted rows with little sticks and kid myself that I will remember what I planted.

And I won’t plant too many zucchini, or too few. I promise.

Part II–Summer

Next year in the garden I won’t wander out after showering and changing clothes to admire my work and bend down to pluck just one errant weed, because I’ve learned that one good weed deserves another.

I won’t work with my shirt off, even though it feels so good, because I know the sun is bad for me. I will always put on sun screen (SPF 45) and wear a wide-brimmed hat.

I will make myself smile by singing “Inch by inch, row by row…”, and not once will I think about the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I will, however, wonder who the Red Sox will use as a fifth starter and marvel at the ability of David Ortiz to deliver in the clutch.

Next year in the garden I will do successive plantings so that I always have tender lettuce. I won’t say “What the heck” and empty the rest of the packet.

I won’t plant peas in August that don’t have a prayer of bearing fruit before the frost. Next year in the garden I won’t curse potato bugs, but will accept my responsibility for the pests I attract. I will outwit potato bugs by not planting potatoes. Next year, that is.

I will de-sucker the tomatoes religiously, and I will build those groovy bent-wood trellises I saw in the gardening magazine. I will say a prayer when I eat the first red fruit.

I won’t let the rogue squash grow, thinking it might turn out to be the elusive “great pumpkin.”

Next year in the garden, at least once, I will strip off all my clothes, lie spread-eagled in the dirt and say “Take me, God, I’m yours!” Then I will take a an outdoor shower, scrubbing every noon and cranny, and feel like the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

Part III–Fall

Next year in the garden, as I pull weeds, I won’t think that I coined the phrase “Nature abhors a vacuum.” (Who did coin that phrase, if not me?).

I won’t wonder why I planted mustard greens, because I won’t plant them, even if I have leftover seed.

I will wear a long-sleeve shirt while pruning the blackberries. Did I already say that?

I won’t start the chipper-shredder “just to see if it will start,” then put through a sunflower stalk “just to see what happens,” especially when I am just killing time before we go out to dinner.

Next year I won’t bore visitors with extensive garden tours, filled with eloquent soliloquies on the virtues of compost. I won’t describe myself as the “poor man’s Eliot Coleman.”

I will pick the chard before it becomes tough and stringy.

I won’t stand speechless before a ten foot sunflower and marvel at the memory of pressing a single seed into the soil with my thumb. I won’t laugh out loud when I see three blue jays hanging upside down on the foot-wide seed pods, possessed by gluttony.

I won’t be disappointed when the Sox fall by the wayside, because I know there is always next year.

Next year in the garden, I will cover at the hint of frost.

I will plant my bulbs and garlic before the ground freezes, but I won’t cover them with mulch until the ground is hard and critter-proof.

I won’t pretend not to be disappointed when my garlic and cherry tomatoes fail to score ribbons at the Tunbridge World’s Fair.

Next year in the garden I won’t break into Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going” when I see a chevron overhead.

Part IV–Winter

Next year in the garden I won’t get delusional when I see this year’s seeds on sale. I won’t buy enough to feed all of central Vermont and I won’t think I’m a rich man as I flip through the colorful packets in January. I won’t question why I bought two types of turnips. I hate turnip.

I won’t delude myself into thinking I can grow seven varieties of pepper from seed.

I won’t buy seeds for inedible greens with exotic Japanese names.

I will store my squash properly, so they don’t rot.

I will give gifts of garlic and blackberry wine as if I am bestowing frankincense and myrrh (The blackberry wine is actually pretty damn good). I won’t take it personally when I see how cheap garlic is at Costco.

I won’t check the mail for the first seed catalog the day after Thanksgiving.

I will think good thoughts when we eat last summer’s pesto.

Next year in the garden I won’t think I am part of life’s great cycle just because I pee on the frozen compost.

Cribbage, anyone?

There will always be a garden. There will always be a next year. There will always be love.