Pop knew everybody. Didn’t have a dime but took me everywhere. We’d pull
up to the Garden parking lot in our old beater. No hope. It was full
when I was born, and now I’m in grammar school. I cringed until the face
leans out of the booth and it’s his nephew in there. Right over there,
Uncle Buddy. Where the players park.
You couldn’t buy a ticket with money. The Garden would thrum with
excitement and no one would miss it for filthy lucre. Pop had four.
Conjured them like a wizard at work because the boss was already wearing
white shoes for the season and wouldn’t sweat in a seat in that
hellhole when he could be on the Vineyard. Pop says he’ll sit behind the
pole and stare at the big rusty rivets but I’d always end up there
because I fit.
Uncle Smokey would come and puff his tiparillos and jape with Dad and I
was in the company of men and stood in awe like at the foot of marble
Lincolns.
There was weather inside there. Cumulus clouds of smoke would meet the
smog from the drunken exhalations and clash with the cold front coming
up from Bobby Orr’s ice under the rickety parquet wood floor.
Then we’d stand and the floor was lost to me, nothing but the boles of
men in an endless forest swaying in the breeze of excitement.
I’d kill ten innocent men to go back there for ten minutes.
5 Responses
Same first notes as Rikki Don't Lose That Number
Nice music. So the basketball guy always misses and the hockey guy always makes the shot. Is that what this is all about? Can't figure it out. I grew up in Florida. No ice. No basketball. Our pro baseball team was in Atlanta. College football was about it I guess. Go Gators. I remember a liquored up Gator Bowl. I was standing about half way up the stands in an aisle in my Boy Scout uniform (yet that's me, usher Larry) watching the whiskey bottles fly. Interesting times. It wasn't until college days at The Swamp that I finally figured out some of what was happening down on the field.
I often cry when I laugh. Happy tears. I also laugh when I am sad, not sure what that is all about. Thanks for sharing.
We are of the age that we recall those experiences that could never exist today because of all the rules…I even remember flying on a plane, wearing a suit of course, and having people all around me smoking during the flight.
Most of my "I'd kill to go back" revolve around my dad and being around cops as he was a police chief.
We had nothing, but we had everything.
Tonight's attendance 13,909.