So yeah, that really happened

Hi,

My husband Mike’s giving me a blog break again. Here’s his latest:

She’s back on top of the world.

Today Beth had her first followup visit with one of the cardiologists who treated her the morning of her emergency surgery. Three notes about our time with Dr. Ranya Sweis today:

1. She’s the best cardiologist in the world in my book, not to mention a helluva human being.
2. Beth’s doing great, on or ahead of schedule on all counts. She’ll be swimming laps before you know it.
3. Dr. Sweis recounted the events of that Thursday for both of us. I had most of it right, but she added some missing pieces. And her  account confirmed that when my own heart missed a few beats that morning out of fear that I was losing Beth, it was for good reason. I wasn’t over-reacting. Beth was on very thin ice. The team at Northwestern worked magnificently, heroically, efficiently. They have a lot to be proud of.

We’re lucky. And one of these days maybe I’ll feel lucky. And triumphant. Until then, I’m just content to feel a little numb and worn out and not so much lucky as … grateful.

Grateful that we have health insurance. That we flew Beth home from Vermont early. That she had her first scary incident in a cardiologist’s office, and that Northwestern Memorial Hospital was the nearest trauma center.

That I could get a concerned call at 5:30 a.m., take a shower, step into a cab and be at the hospital in roughly 18 minutes. That all those people with all that training and experience were there. Fantastic young people. Twenty-something Amandas and Beckys and Christophers and Laurens with knowledge and presence beyond their years.

Grateful that they all told me everything as soon as they knew it, before, during, and after the surgery. That Dr. Sweis made me promise her — after delivering the news that Beth’s heart had gone bonkers and had to be shocked back into rhythm, and that she was heading to emergency surgery — that I’d call a friend to be with me. That I made good on that promise, something I probably wouldn’t have done 25 years ago.

And that when I called our friend Greg he said he was on the first day of five days off. Greg’s a flight attendant. He never has five days off. “Do you want me to come down there?” I said yes. And he did. Within an hour. And he brought a fresh new Hav-A-Hank, some sugarless gum and salty junk food. And he shepherded me through the next few hours when I was in a kind of trance and couldn’t make mundane decisions about things like whether to go for a walk to get some fresh air or not.

Grateful that the cab driver who took me to the hospital on Saturday morning was tuned into WBEZ and This American Life. After I got in he turned it down to be polite. I asked him to turn it back up, and we rode to the hospital listening to David Sedaris read his story about his jazz-loving father’s record collection, his dad’s ill-fated attempt to enlist his children into his own private jazz combo, and listening to Sedaris’ uncanny Billy Holiday impressions. The cab driver and I laughed together the whole ride.

And grateful that family and friends made respectfully, perfectly timed visits that broke the hospital monotony. (And later, after the hospital, took Beth on walks, took Whitney on walks, and delivered meals to our door.)

I have relived those terrifying hours in the hospital, retold the story again and again;  I’m grateful to all of you who’ve listened. Once I start I have to tell it all, just to get to the good ending, almost afraid that if I get stopped in the middle it’d end differently. It’s crazy all the vignettes that still stream through my head.

I imagine the heartbreak of folks who do lose someone suddenly, unexpectedly; to illness, to accident, to violence. And I wish so hard that they all had our outcome. And I hope they have the kind of support I’ve had, we’ve had.

Thank you all.

Time for the next chapter.

Great Lake, great dog, great friends

You might remember the guest post my friend Chuck Gullet wrote (and the memorable photos he took) a few years ago when he came along on an appointment to get my fake eye polished. Chuck is one of the volunteers who has been taking Whitney on long walks while I recover from surgery, and here he is with a guest post about walking with Whit. 

Walking Miss Whitney

by Chuck Gullett

What could be better than this?

It’s not just a walk in the park when you have a highly trained guide dog at your side. As soon as Whitney and I step outside, I can immediately tell that Beth’s Seeing Eye dog has a ton of pent up energy and also wants to test out her new walker. After she sniffs around and pulls me from tree to tree, Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, is channeled through me. It is time to get down to business and start that walk.

Whitney knows that I’m not Beth. She also knows that she really isn’t “on duty,” but I still have to cross the street at the corners and have her sit to wait for traffic. I think these walks might actually make me a more responsible pedestrian and give up my jaywalking ways.

Whitney is a pretty cool character while we are out. I’m not supposed to let her mingle with other dogs, but that’s not too hard. Other dogs check her out and try to pull their owners over, but Whit just struts by without giving much notice at all. We are on a mission, after all. The mission is to get to Lake Michigan.

Beth and Mike mentioned that Whit really likes the lake. So, of course, that’s where I decide to walk her. As we start getting close, the pulling gets stronger and stronger. She doesn’t just love the lake, she is freaking crazy about it. The edge of the harbor area is about 10 feet above the water. Without the leash, she would have been in the water in a second.

Well…this!

I walk her over to a bench where we sit down and try to relax a bit. That seems to work until the ducks come flying in. What’s better than a lake? Obviously… a lake with ducks. We went over to check them out, but it had to be a very brief introduction (no pun intended). My arm was getting worn out from holding her back and it was time to head home.

Whit knows the route home pretty well, but she really slowed down the pace on the way back. Worn out or just procrastinating? I like to think she just wanted more quality time with Uncle Chuck — we both had a good walk.

It’s me, Beth again with a shameless plug — besides being a primo dog walker, Chuck’s a real estate broker. If you’re looking for a place in Chicago, give him a call: 312-593-1436

For my first cardio rehab walk, I’m heading to 7-Eleven for a Megamillions ticket

Mike chauffeured me home on Tuesday.

Listening to Mike read all your loving and glowing blog comments out loud to me in my hospital room over the past week sometimes gave me the feeling I was attending my own funeral. Doctors did have to shock my heart back to work last Thursday, so it was kind of like that. But I’m still here, and I’m more grateful than ever for my wonderful friends and family.

I am a lucky girl.

Turns out the cardiac surgeon who happened to be on hand to do my emergency open-heart repair job last week is one of the top cardiac surgeons in the United States. Patrick McCarthy came to Northwestern Memorial Hospital via the Cleveland Clinic. And a Couple nights ago, he came to my hospital room to introduce himself and see the miracle girl sitting up in a chair and talking. The benign tumors he’d removed were like a sea anemone, he said. “It was flapping around your aortic valve and attaching itself here and there for a while, and then flapping around again.” He’s done over ten thousand heart surgeries and has seen a benign tumor on the aortic valve a few times before. Never one this big, though. He said it was as big as a marble.

The famous doctor sounded very pleased to have a photo of the tumor he could send to the cardiologist who’d had me ambulanced here last Wednesday. “It really is very exciting.” Considering the outcome, I had to agree.

Mike and I both thanked Dr. McCarthy profusely before he left the room , of course, and I told him surviving all this has given me a lot to ponder. As we shook hands to say goodbye, I jokingly asked if he thought I should join a religious cult now and move to an underdeveloped country to help people less fortunate. Dr. McCarthy didn’t bat an eye. “No,” he said. “I think you should buy a lottery ticket.”

Miracle girl lives!

Wedding day, July 28, 1984. Thanks to some terrific people, me and the miracle girl can look forward to another anniversary. (Photo by Rick Amodt.)

Hello everyone. It’s still me filling in for Beth. She’s home — from Vermont, anyway — but a funny thing happened on her way back to the blog. Many of you already know the story — for those who are reading it for the first time, apologies for the scare. But Beth and I pieced together the following account because we thought you’d want to know. We’re still sorting some things out, so don’t be surprised if we don’t respond right away. Thank you for reading—Mike

Beth had emergency open-heart surgery Thursday morning, and she is OK. More than OK. She’s recovering remarkably well, crazy remarkably well, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I just left her room. She is walking the hallways, with a guide, and still attached to surgical drains.

The docs and staff who got her to this point have been streaming through over the past couple days and they all come through Beth’s hospital room door saying, in a tone of amazement, “I just wanted to lay eyes on the miracle girl.”

For the past two weeks, starting when Beth was still in Vermont, she had been experiencing infrequent burning sensations, followed by pain in her chest. Our friend Debbie Wood had a heart attack in her 40s. Debbie works at Northwestern University and by chance was involved in the design project Beth worked on there last month. During that time, Debbie reminded Beth to see a doctor if she ever had any chest pain. “Women tend to ignore them,” she warned. “It could be serious.”

Friends from New Hampshire drove to Vermont and brought Beth to the Burlington airport and she flew home, earlier than planned, to me. At home, her pains seemed to increase in frequency. But they didn’t fit the description of angina – no swelling in the ankles, no lightheadedness, and the pain didn’t spread into her arms or back. Rather than go to the ER, we had our endocrinologist get Beth in for an appointment for a stress test/echocardiogram last Wednesday afternoon at a downtown cardiologist’s office.

That’s when the sh-t hit the fan. Beth had what was technically a heart attack while she was on the treadmill. A Chicago EMS crew rushed Beth to the Northwestern Emergency Room in an ambulance. Followed by me in a cab.

Her angiogram the next morning showed, against all reasonable expectations for someone who’d been diabetic 47 years, that Beth’s arteries were clear. When the cardiologist came from the cardiac catheterization lab to brief me, she said, “Dude, I hope my arteries are that clean when I’m 54.” Which sounded like good news. Except it still left them not knowing what the problem was. And that’s when Beth’s heart went into fibrillation. They had to shock it back into rhythm.  No time to spare now. No decision , either. Open heart surgery.

A dozen staff frantically prepped her for surgery, like a scene out of House. When the anesthesiologist came with release papers for me to sign, and just before they wheeled her away, he said, “ She’s unstable. We’re going to do the best we can do.”

It was only on the operating table that they solved the puzzle — why she had been experiencing chest pains over the past couple weeks. We worried that it had something to do with that staph infection she’d gotten back in Vermont. Or coronary artery disease, which diabetics are more susceptible to than the general population. But no. They’d found — and removed — three benign tumors on Beth’s aortic valve. Such tumors are uncommon. But Beth was, as is her wont, one-of-a-kind. In the surgeon’s words, “I’ve done 10,000 operations and I’ll tell you — one of these tumors was the biggest I’ve ever seen. It’s more than a centimeter.”

He explained that the tumors flapped when Beth’s valve opened and closed. And one of them, the big SOB tumor, intermittently cut off blood flow to Beth’s heart. Leaving her with a burning sensation followed by pain in her chest.

And so, through the combination of some good decisions, some absolutely terrific, wonderful, heroic medical staff at Northwestern Hospital, the good wishes and support of our wonderful friends and family, and, some simple good luck, Beth will be coming home to me again early this week.

Beth will be coming home to the blog eventually, too, and I probably will do a post or two on the subject. There are people to thank, wonderful friends, family members, and complete strangers. And probably a lot of thoughts to be sorted out via writing.

Until then, please, take care of yourselves, and each other.

The Humanity Project and other light topics

Some week, huh?

Well, luckily, defying logic, life goes on. Here’s how life has been going on in the Finke-Knezovich worlds of late:

• Beth and Whitney have been on a roll since their staph-infected first few days at the Vermont Studio Center. Beth says she’s getting a lot done, that Whitney seems to be mellowing in accordance with the more pastoral pace and setting. And Beth says the food at VSC is terrific.
  
• While in Urbana this week, I had a great lunch of Thai food with Jean Thompson. Beth has written here at the blog about Jean, our dear, one-of-a-kind friend. Jean was a mentor to Beth while Beth worked at writing and publishing “Long Time, No See.” Jean’s a spookily talented writer who gets into characters’ heads and lays them open to readers like no one else. During her teaching career at the University of Illinois, Jean produced a highly regarded body of short-story collections and novels. One of the collections, Who Do You Love, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Well, since retiring from the academic world, she’s been producing more great work than ever. Her latest – The Humanity Project – just received a thoughtful and glowing review at the New York Times. If you’re a reader, go out and get it, or anything by Jean.
• Roger Ebert is dead. Long Live Ebertfest. My friend Brand Fortner, whose daughter contributed a guest post here about her father’s adoration for Ebert, is at this year’s Ebertfest in Champaign in the newly, grandly renovated historic Virginia Theater. Another Urbana friend—Steven Bentz, of Steven and Nancy—who adopted Hanni, is director of the Virginia, and has been working heroically  to ensure the theater was ready after months of work.
• There are some nice things about being a bachelor for a few weeks. Utter spontaneity is one. A week or two ago, on a Sunday night, I was restless. I’d heard that pianist Eric Reed and his trio was putting on a great Thelonious Monk-themed show at Jazz Showcase. I looked up at the clock, which read 7:30. I closed my computer, I put on my coat, and walked the two blocks to the Showcase. Walked in, bought a ticket, sat down, and enjoyed a sublime set. Sometimes, life is just good.
• I just learned that thanks to the good people who care for our son Gus up at Bethesda Lutheran Communities in Watertown, Wis., Gus will be getting an hour-long joy ride this summer — in either an open-top vintage car or…a sidecar on a motorcycle! (I love motorcycles, and based on how much he enjoyed riding in our bicycle trailer, I think Gus would love either the sidecar or the antique auto).

Happy birthday Flo.

Best of all: Tomorrow, April 20, Flo – Beth’s evergreen mother – turns 97 years old. She’s still living in her own place, and her face lights up about any number of simple pleasures.

Happy 97^th Flo.

Going once, going twice…The Seeing Eye auction

Hava Hegenbarth is no stranger to this space. Her first appearance was a poignant post about her assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda. Her second was about her experiences raising a puppy named Spinner for Leader Dogs in Rochester, Michigan. Hava also helps out with the Seeing Eye’s annual online auction — here she is again to tell you about it.

One of Hava’s harnessed pups. You know you want one.

It’s quickly approaching!  My favorite event of the year – the Seeing Eye’s annual on-line auction. Why you may ask, do I get such a charge out of this?

It was at their first annual that I won an item listed as “Spend a day with Seeing Eye instructors.” That day we loaded up some dogs and headed to New York City. There I watched the instructors train the dogs. It was fascinating. After an hour or so, they announced it was my turn. They blindfolded me and handed me a harness. They led me to a dog. That patient dog stood while I clumsily attempted to put his harness on him. I finally got it right and stood up.  I was then told to command the dog forward.

I was terrified! Being blind felt so claustrophobic. The instructors understood. They were kind and encouraging but insistent.

“Just follow your dog.” They told me.

I took a step forward. It was alright.  Nothing bad happened to me. Another step and then another.  Soon I was confidently walking around New York as if had all my life.  What a thrilling experience!

Grateful, I have since then, tried to contribute items to the auction because I really believe in and support what the Seeing Eye does. What I mainly contribute are plush toy dogs which I’ve fit with hand-made leather guide harnesses. These have proved to be immensely popular with bidders.

At first I knew nothing of working with leather and my first harness attempts were somewhat crude.  I studied the craft and acquired some proper tools. Last year I went out to Massachusetts to work with the people who make harnesses for the Seeing Eye. They put me to work making real harnesses. I learned a great deal from them. My latest works are considerably improved. They do look authentic, but I always make them too small to fit a real dog as I do not want to make a harness that could be misused. In any case the harness handles are only leather-covered wire which would never stand up to actual use.

If you think you’d like to own one of these plush harnessed dogs or any of hundreds of other exciting items (including dinner for 4 with Betty White, or Spend a Day with Seeing Eye Instructors) check out the Seeing Eye’s 5th annual on-line auction.  The auction begins April 22 this year and you can find a link to it as well as instructions for registering to bid at the Seeing Eye’s website: www.seeingeye.org. They are also still accepting donations for their auction if you feel inclined to give.

Happy bidding and hope that you win!

Ebert’s number one fan

The show will go on at this year’s 15th Annual Ebertfest. Tilda Swinton, Shailene Woodley and Jack Black are among those expected to attend this year’s festival.

Hey, it’s Mike again–I promise I’ll fill you in on Montreal eventually, but the sad event  of yesterday — the death of Roger Ebert — changed my plans. My longtime and dear friend, Brand Fortner, was without question Roger Ebert’s biggest fan. FYI: I met Brand  back in 1990. He was a co-founder of Spyglass, a then tiny startup software company in Champaign, Ill., that was spun off from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. And he hired me. It remains the best and most fulfilling job I’ve ever had — it led to an unforgettable ride during the dot.com days, and the success of Spyglass changed my, Beth’s and our son Gus’s life for the better. Best of all,  Brand and I have remained friends.

I’m like a lot of people — I fully enjoyed Roger Ebert, even when I didn’t agree with him. But no one loved or respected Ebert more than Brand, who has also always attended and supported Ebertfest, a terrific film festival held in Champaign’s historic Virginia Theater each year.

After yesterday’s news, Brand was good enough to share a little essay his daughter Paula had written in college about what it was like to grow up with someone who worshipped at the altar of Roger. Paula—-now an accomplished adult (yikes) in her own right — was good enough to let me share it here on Beth’s blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

Roger and Dad

My dad idolizes Roger Ebert. He has Ebert posters hanging on his walls and Ebert movie yearbooks filling his bookcases. Every year, my dad attends Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival and comes back laden with souvenir hats, bags and t-shirts. Above my dad’s desk hangs a signed, framed photo of Roger Ebert shaking his hand. “To Brand, on the occasion of HAL 9000′s birthday,” Roger wrote, adding a quote from HAL’s demise in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey… “Daisy … daisy …”.

When we were younger, my brothers and I needed my dad’s approval before going to the movie theater. My dad never cared about a movie’s rating, violence or explicit content. Rather, he needed to discuss whether Roger would approve of our choice.”You want to see that movie?” he’d ask. “Well, you know what Roger said about it, don’t you?” My brothers and I would look at each other and sigh. My dad would pull up the review and read to us from the holy word of Roger. We almost never made it to the theater by showtime.

My dad has bought nearly every film that Roger liked, and as a result, he owns hundreds of movies. Although my dad has barely seen a quarter of the movies he owns, he knows what Roger thinks of each one. For the movies my dad has seen, his opinion is intertwined with Roger’s. I remember my dad once telling me that he hadn’t enjoyed a movie that Roger rated favorably. After some consideration, my dad decided to watch the movie again to better understand Roger’s opinion.

When I was in high school, my friends would drop by to borrow movies from our massive collection. This pleased my dad to no end. He even made his own video rental cards and checkout slips to facilitate the borrowing process. And he loved spreading the gospel of Roger. If a friend wanted to borrow a particular movie, my dad would sit him down and walk him through Roger’s review. Then my dad would jump up. ”Oh, and if you like this movie, I know at least six more that you’ll love.” My friends always left with their hands full. Even now, I still turn to my dad for movie advice. Whether I’m in the mood for a mindless action flick or a foreign drama, he knows exactly what to recommend. My dad really knows his movies. Or, rather, he really knows his Roger Ebert.

A familiar and most unwelcome feeling

Hi folks, here’s the first of my substitute blog appearances. Hope you’ll bear with me while Beth’s in her residency at the Vermont Studio Center.–Mike

So, Beth and I were in Montreal before we dropped her in Vermont. Everything about our Quebec weekend was fabulous. Fantastic food, charming people–and some great artwork–in our hotel! But more on that later. First, a dispatch about Beth’s first week in Vermont.

Beth and Whitney outside our hotel–Lhotel–in Montreal. The place is packed with the owner’s art collection.

On Sunday we woke up in Lhotel, went downstairs for one more sublime breakfast of sublime croissant and sublime coffee–not to mention meats and cheeses. Then it was off to…Hertz. Somehow, nothing kills a croissant buzz like a rental car. But hey, we got a nice Jetta, and we headed to Johnson, Vermont.

Beth and I had already talked about dropoff day — it was a source of quiet dread for both of us. Now, Beth getting an NEA fellowship to work on her writing was a terrific thing. The Vermont Studio Center — by multiple accounts of friends who’d spent time there — is a terrific place. Still, the dread — well beyond the natural trepidation about a month-long separation.

We figured out that it traces back almost 28 years. That’s when I dropped off Beth at what was then called the Illinois Visually Handicapped Institute — destined to be renamed Braille Jail by Beth after an up-and-down stay of nearly three months. The application process to get into IVHI had been a classic paper chase — with doctor’s reports, waivers, and endless mortgage-financing-style requests for more and more documentation.

We’d been married a year and already had spent a good portion of it apart from one another. Beth’s surgeries and hospitalizations and followup visits were in Chicago — but we lived in Urbana. So I’d see her on weekends and head back to Urbana and back to work, always hoping for the best. After the doctor said Beth would not see again, she came home. It was difficult and awkward, but at least we were together. And I wasn’t trusting her care to strangers.

So, by the fall of 1985, even though we both knew Beth needed to spend time at IVHI, the last thing we wanted was for her to go away for several months.

Still, we thought, it was worth it: Beth would learn Braille. And orientation and mobility skills (using a white cane to navigate). And the romantically labeled Activities of Daily living (cooking, cleaning, daily grind stuff). And, importantly, she’d learn to measure out and give insulin injections for herself using some adaptive tools and techniques. I’d been preparing her shots since she came home.

We moved Beth into her dorm room, we took a guided tour, we met the director. I felt like I was dropping her off at college. Except it wasn’t anything like college. It was something she had to do because she was blind. It didn’t help that though that neighborhood has changed radically for the better since 1985, back then, it was treacherous. And the place felt a little prison-like.

It was not a happy time. We said teary goodbyes, and I drove south to our apartment in Champaign. Telling myself that it was silly to worry and that this was important, all the way down the straight, flat and lonely I-57.

Well.

Not long after I got home, the phone rang. It was Beth. She had a shaky voice. I asked her what was wrong. “I’m at Cook County hospital,” she said. “WHAT!?” I boomed over the phone. I collected myself. Until Beth learned how to do her own injections, a nurse would have to do it. Except IVHI had forgotten that. And no nurse was on duty. She asked staff who were there to simply measure an injection, but they said the rules said they couldn’t do that.

So, of course, the reasonable next step was going to the Cook County Hospital emergency room, where Beth waited in a hallway for hours to receive her insulin injection. It was an awful start to an awful stay that was rife with bureaucratic snafus and delays. For example, we’d obtained a doctor’s statement that Beth was fit enough for the occupation and mobility training — which could be strenuous. But that paperwork got lost. We got replacements, but it set off a dominoes-from-hell chain reaction that prevented Beth from getting mobility training for more than a month. She really was something of a prisoner.

All of this came from an entity that was supposed to be helping. It was the last thing Beth needed at that point. I didn’t much care for it, either.

And so, whether it’s been going away to get her dogs or — going to Vermont — we are both haunted by those dark times whenever she’s headed off for an extended period of time.

Whitney likes the view outside Beth’s studio.

At the Vermont Studio Center, I helped her get situated in her room — and her cute little studio space, which happens to be right beside a lovely little stream, which runs down from lovely mountains. Nothing fancy, but, well, lovely. Still, Vermont is not know for right angles or a grid road system — which present challenges to Beth and Whitney. And we both knew it would take her days before she was confident getting from her dorm to her studio to the dining hall and back.

But, we both know she would. In a very short time on Sunday afternoon, we met terrific people — staff and fellow students–who had already been extremely helpful. And so, though it was sad to part, I felt good by the time I got home Sunday night.

And then, Monday, I got a call. “I’ve had an eventful day,” Beth said. And she had. She slept fitfully her first night. Her elbow hurt. She had a fever. One of the Vermont staff looked at her arm and said it looked bad, and wisely took her to the nearest emergency room. There, they suspected a staph infection. They did an incision — and an MRI — to determine that the infection had not gone deep into her joint and muscle tissue. Still, because of the threat of superbugs, they started her on a cocktail of antibiotics, including some pretty strong stuff.

Luckily, cultures came back that indicated it wasn’t as serious as it might have been. And the antibiotics did their job. And today, she called to say that after two nights in the hospital, she was back in her studio. Writing. With Whitney at her feet. Next to that beautiful little stream. In that beautiful little town. She’ll get visits from a nurse for 10 days, but she’s in great spirits. She says the food is terrific — the Studio has a staff chef!

Whew. She’s back. She’s fine.

And just maybe, the ghost of Braille Jail is gone. For good.

Buy him some peanuts and Crackerjack

Here’s one last post I prepared before taking off for my residency at the Vermont Studio Center. Baseball season is finally here, and when I asked my friend Bob Ringwald to write a guest post about his love for the game, he willingly agreed.My brother Doug introduced me to Bob Ringwald years ago — they’re both jazz musicians, and they play together from time to time. Bob is blind, and it sounds like he’s looking forward to baseball season as much as – maybe even more than? – I am!

Take me out to the ballgame

by Bob Ringwald

The New York Giants moved to San Francisco In 1958, and that’s when I became a Giants fan. I was at a game at Candlestick park on a day when Willie Mays hit four home runs! But in the 60s and 70s, after Willie Mays left the Giants, I was working 6 and 7-nights a week as a musician. I had no time to follow baseball.

We moved to Los Angeles in 1979. One night I happened to decide to listen to a Giants – Dodgers game on the radio, and that was it: Vince Scully, the amazing Dodger play-by-play announcer, won me over. He is the best I have ever heard, and believe me, I’ve heard a lot of baseball announcers. I became a dyed-in-the wool Dodger fan.

We moved back to Northern California some 18 years ago, but I’m still a Dodger fan. I bleed Dodger Blue. Dodgers games are not heard this far north in Sacramento, but I can listen to the games using my computer on MLB dot com.

That’s Bob–Molly’s dad–announcing the lineups (reading from a Braille lineup card) at Dodger Stadium.

When we were still living in Tinsel Town, the Dodgers had a promotion once where you wrote in which baseball job you’d like to do: hang with the grounds crew, drag the base path during the 7th inning, sit with the sports writers and write your own story, hang out with the umpires, that sort of thing. I wrote a letter saying that I wanted to be the Public Address announcer. I knew someone in the P.R. department, so I handed the letter to him. That way it wouldn’t get lost in the thousands of letters I knew might come in.

On July 27, 1991 I used my Braille skills to announce the lineup for a Los Angeles Dodgers – Montreal Expos game. Guess I passed the audition: they invited me to announce the players as they came up to bat in the bottom of the 3rd inning, too, and when I put a little extra English on my announcement of Darrell Strawberry’s name, the 50,000 people in the stands went crazy. What a sense of power!

Later I was invited to go out onto the field at Dodger Stadium to see what the pitcher’s mound, bases, base path and home plate really felt like. I jumped up against the center field wall like a big league outfielder. I picked up the phone they answer in the bullpen when managers call from the dugout. I sat in the Dodger dugout alongside the famous drinking fountain that angry players have been known to destroy with their bats, and, as if that wasn’t enough, I also had the honor to sit in Vince Scully’s chair in the press box. My tour that day ended in the Dodger exercise room. Legendary Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda was on the treadmill, and we had a very interesting chat.

In the early 80s, my daughter, actress and author Molly Ringwald, sang the National Anthem at several Dodger games. Fernando Valenzuela gave her a signed baseball. Another time she was given a baseball signed by all of the 1981 World Series Championship Dodgers. I proudly display those autographed baseballs in my office.

From time to time people ask me, “If you can’t see the action, why would you want to go to the game when you could just as easily be at home listening to it on the radio?” I sometimes answer by saying “Why would you want to go to the game when you can see the action better, close up, at home on TV?” I do take a portable radio to the game to hear the play by play. But there is something more. There is the electricity of the crowd, the sound of the ball hitting the bat and mitt, the P.A. announcer, the venders selling programs, ice-cream, peanuts and other assorted goodies. And of course at Dodger Stadium there are the famous Dodger Dogs. Dodger Dogs are just regular Farmer John hot dogs. But, once you walk through the turn styles of the ball park, they become a gourmet repast.

Care to guess where I’ll be later today? Yes . . . . we’re traveling 400 miles south from Sacramento to Los Angeles to attend the Dodgers vs. Giants opening day game at Dodger Stadium. Care to take a guess which team I’ll be rooting for???

You can check out more photos of Bob’s baseball days on his web site. Play ball!

The heart and soul of Francis W. Parker School

This week Judy Roth, one of the writers in my Thursday afternoon memoir-writing class, arranged for Whitney and me to visit the school where her grandson Davin goes to kindergarten. My friend Carol drove us to Francis W. Parker School and agreed to write a guest post about our morning together there.

My morning at Francis W. Parker School

by Carol Dorf

The hands flew up in unison.

When I heard Beth was going to speak to kids at Francis W. Parker School, my hand immediately shot up to ask if I could accompany her. Sure, I wanted to experience Beth interacting with kids, but, truth be told, I really wanted to see what kids who attend one of the most prestigious private schools in Chicago are like. From the school Web site:

Colonel Francis W. Parker, influenced by the educational theories of John Dewey, envisioned a school that held the child at its very center. His fundamental belief was that learning could be fun and proved his point, not by theories on child psychology, but with actual classroom demonstrations. Colonel Parker believed that education included the complete development of an individual — mental, physical, and moral. Through the educational journey, students would develop in to lifelong learners and active, democratic citizens.

Colonel Parker believed that these great citizens must use their knowledge to improve the community– to make things better, more fair and pure. Parker students would graduate, not only with vast knowledge, but also with heart and soul.

Francis W. Parker School was, shall I say, quite lush: carpeted hallways, perfectly appointed decorations on the walls, modern desks, fabric lounge chairs. This was the crème de la crème.

The kindergarteners shuffled into the auditorium, and once they found their seats I could see heads bobbing and stretching to get a look at Beth and Whitney. Some kids were literally on the edges of their seats in anticipation of what would come. They waited patiently as Beth did her shpiel, and then, like mini Arnold Horshack’s, two dozen hands went up.

This was the moment I was waiting for. What questions would these “senior kindergarteners” ask: “How do you know the maid has done a good job if you can’t see?” “Who walks the dog for you?” Yes, I admit I was expecting a bunch of precocious kids asking questions that reflected their seemingly privileged lives. I pre-judged, and boy, was I wrong. What I heard instead was exactly what you’d expect from any 5-year-old:

• How do you write if you can’t see?
• Can you tell what I look like?
• If you can find your wallet, How do you know what’s in there?
• How do you make food?
• When you’re doing art, and you have to pick a color, how do you know what it is, you know, if your dog is color blind?

A big thank you to Beth for allowing me to accompany her that morning. Me and the kids at Frances W. Parker School learned a lot that day.