Bluegrass and Baseball

Two of my all time favorite activities are bluegrass festivals and baseball games, and now that I'm pretty much unemployed (a.k.a. semi-retired) there's serious time to devote to both, so over the past few years I've been able to appreciate them on a regular basis. I've noticed, though, that while they live in two different world, by and large, and each pretty much appeals to two different groups of folks, still and all it occurs to me that both bluegrass and baseball have some strong commonalities.



My friend Ted Lehmann, for instance, has a knowledgeable and entertaining blog http://www.tedlehmann.blogspot.com/ which talks about, among other things, our shared passion for bluegrass music and festivals. In one of his recent posts, Ted talked about what he's learned from this spring's splurge in festivals, and one of his observations is that people come to them for a wide variety of reasons: some come to jam with other fans, some come to visit and socialize with old friends, some come for cheap camping, some come to pay serious attention to the music, some come for the food (for whom funnel cake is at the top of the nutritional pyramid), and some come for a little of each. Which is fine, just as it should be. Different strokes, etc.



I sit in the stands (interesting phrase!) at a baseball game and looking around the crowd I see exactly the same thing: some stay riveted to their seats and record every pitch in their scorecard (mea culpa), some form little (or large) circles and chat with friends, oblivious to the game, some bustle back and forth from one concession stand to another, some lean back, close their eyes, and take a little nap. And they're all, I assume, having a good time.

Another similarity is that both baseball and bluegrass are "au naturel" experiences, needing to be outdoors for peak enjoyment. Oh, I know: I've been to bluegrass festivals in auditoriums and convention centers, and I've been to ball games in covered stadiums played on artificial grass. But, as we say, it just ain't the same. Moving either indoors changes it from being a festival to a concert, from being a ball game to an exhibition. They belong out of doors, where God intended them to be.

One more example. There are some truly fine professional musicians playing at festivals, veterans of many years of performing in this difficult genre. They put on shows which provide great entertainment and inspire much awe, and I would not for a minute disparage their work. Yet at the same time, I find even more entertainment when sitting with a small group of amateurs jamming in the parking lot or playing on a makeshift stage at a small festival. The immediacy of that music adds a new dimension to my enjoyment of it.

So it is with baseball. Watching some college guys playing their hearts out for nothing more than the triumph of winning is far more exciting and rewarding than sitting in a seat far removed from the playing field and watching the same game on a higher skill level being played by professionals for mega millions. Is it a superior baseball game? Well, on one level, sure, just as Rhonda Vincent (for example) puts on a superior bluegrass show. Yet there is often more power, more emotion, more energy, in seeing amateurs play baseball and bluegrass.

We were sitting around our back porch this evening, giving me some gist for this blog, and all kinds of similarities very quickly emerged. Give it a try yourself, and find some common ground between bluegrass festivals and baseball games.

Blue Ridge Mountains

Ann is the mountain person in our family. I'm more the beach person. But that's not to say we don't both love the mountains, for we do, with a passion.

That's why in the course of our travels together we've spent a good chunk of time in just about all the mountains of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. We've crossed the East and West Sierra Madre in Mexico, we've wandered up and down the Canadian Rockies, and camped in all the mountains of this country, including Alaska's Mt. McKinley/Denali and the Chugach range. From the magnificent Adirondacks and New England's White Mountains out to the awesome Rockies, we've stories to tell about them all. We love the mountains.

Of course we haven't seen the Swiss Alps or Everest and the Himalayan peaks, or other mountains that we can't reach by car, but here in the Western Hemisphere we've enjoyed them all. There's something about the solidity and power of mountains that captures the imagination, which is why, I suppose, so many of the ancients saw them as the home of the gods.

Then there's our own Olympus, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the east face of the Appalachian chain, mountains like no others. They start down in the Great Smokies of north Georgia and continue northeasterly into northern Virginia, where they merge with the Alleghenies and quietly disappear.

They are, simply, the most beautiful mountains I've ever seen. The most elegant, the most peaceful, the most gentle of all mountains. It's as though the forces behind all the authority figures in my life were put into geographical terms, where they would be the Blue Ridge.

Sometimes, like last weekend when we crossed them, the laurel and rhododendron are just beginning to give color to the intense light green of the trees' new foliage. Then, with layers of green turning to blue turning to gray, they fade off into the distance. Although the word is terribly overused, these mountains are truly awesome.

The beauty of the Blue Ridge is undeniable, but there's another ingredient in this mix: the Blue Ridge Parkway. It wanders for 469 miles along the crest of the Ridge, a two lane, 45 mph speed limit, no commercial vehicles gem of a road. Along the way are turn-offs, many with picnic sites, where vistas (like the one in the accompanying picture) can be enjoyed from the eagle's perspective. It is, bar none, my favorite drive in the whole country, and a national treasure.

You won't be surprised, I sure, to know that the current administration in Washington can spend (or waste) a billion dollars a week in Iraq and Afghanistan, but is reducing the budget for our National Parks. In the hierarchy of sins and misdeeds our country (and, in fact, the whole world) is experiencing as a consequence of the Bush-Cheney tragedy, I suppose this (financing the Blue Ridge Parkway) is only a glitch on the budget screen. The good news, however, is that there is a volunteer organization (http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/) formed to take up the slack, and they deserve the support of us all.

The mountains, of course, will be there in all their beauty long after we're gone. With any kind of luck, our grandchildren will be nourished by them just as we have.

A Close Call

It had been a long day, and we were on the way home. The beltway around Charlotte was crowded as it always seems to be, and our car was on cruise control as the traffic zipped along about 70 mph. Very ordinary, almost boring, drive on a familiar, definitely boring highway.

Then, as a convoy of dump trucks sped past us, "Pow!" In the millisecond before it hit, we glimpsed the fist-sized rock coming toward us from the rear duals of one of the dump trucks, but there was neither time nor opportunity to swerve. We heard it at practically the same time that we saw it. We were helpless to avoid it.




Yet in this potentially sad story, there's a glimmer of good news: it had been a close call, for the rock didn't hit our front windshield. In that traffic on that highway at that speed it might have been a disaster. Instead, the offending rock flew over the hood, over the windshield, and smack dab into the center of the glass sunroof. Which was, praise be, closed at the time. Phew!

Fortunately the safety glass did its job and the darned thing bounced harmlessly off our sunroof and probably created some other havoc to the cars behind us. I hope it didn't do too much damage back there, but we'll never know. (Our smashed sunroof glass broke off slowly, tiny piece by tiny piece, as we continued on to home.)

There must be several morals to this story, such as "Constant Vigilance When Driving" or "Don't Follow Dump Trucks", but my favorite is, "Be Grateful For Close Calls". We've all had them, time and again, moments when we came to a fork in the road and for whatever reason took one path instead of the other and then realized, perhaps years later, what a close call it had been.

Looking back, it was a close call when that little school in West Virginia didn't accept me, or when I broke up with a college girl friend, or when I didn't pursue that parish in Virginia, all times when I said, "Phew, that was close." Sometimes, of course, these close calls work the other way, with consequences not as happy. As in presidential elections and baseball playoffs, for instance, when we're reminded that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. But the ones I remember best are those with happy endings.

Whether it's fate or divine guidance or the good fairy, we've all had those moments when we mop our brow and say, as I did on that Interstate around Charlotte, "Phew, that was a close call."

On Going to Church

I had gotten to the church service a bit earlier than usual this morning, and as I sat there I pondered: what in the world am I doing here today? For one thing, it was the early (8:00 am) service, certainly not the inspirational highlight of my week. For another, everyone else in the family, which this week would include not only Ann but also daughter Jennifer and husband and three children, was at home in their pajamas with a second or third cup of coffee, carefully reading the Sunday paper, or quietly watching the cartoon channel.

Yet I had, of my own volition, gotten up, dressed, and driven to St. James. (Ann had wanted to come, but needed to stay home to supervise breakfast and the other needs of the visitors.) Whatever in the world for, I thought? Oh, I'm familiar with all the usual answers: to reconnect with old friends, to experience a conscious contact with the God of my understanding, to fulfill a sense of obligation, and so forth. They're all true, and to a greater or lesser degree they're all operative, but I sensed there was something more.

The longer I sat there in our usual pew #79, the reason began to slowly evolve, and I realized how uncomplicated it actually was: I simply wanted to be there. It was where I belonged this morning. (Maybe the absence of Ann, who usually sits beside me, made that realization more specific.) Even before the tower bell tolled eight and the service began, it was clear: I didn't have to be there, I didn't need to be there, I only wanted to be there.

The view from our pew (when I say "ours", I mean the one we usually sit in unless someone else gets there first) offers several special features, but chief among them is the view of the byplay between the arches that decorate and support the interior. There are quite literally dozens of them, and during moments when I need to rest my brain from the liturgy and/or sermon, I try to count them, but there are too many. They flow so smoothly and easily, sometimes overlapping and sometimes even seem to be moving from one to another. (I've tried to upload a picture of this scene, but so far no success.)

It's a lovely sight, a magnificent experience, one I've known for many years, and I just wanted to renew that acquaintance again this morning. I'm quite sure, of course, that God is somewhere in all this, but I need not name the name to explain my presence today. Rather I'll sit amid the arches and know that here is where I belong this morning.