It’s always great to stroll down memory lane
On the back of the photo are the words, “The gang on the way to play ball.”
The picture is an entirely candid one, which is rare, since the vast majority of photos are posed. Only one boy, his face turned to the camera, seems to know he and his buddies are being captured on film.
The point is not the photo itself, however, as compelling as it is. It’s the idea that these particular boys are specially situated, occupying a unique place: Downer Avenue, Uniontown, Pa., in the year 1938 or 1939, 1940 or 1941.
Bet your last dollar that none of the boys was thinking ahead — to 1942 or any other year. They couldn’t even imagine 2015, just as we find it impossible to bring into focus a year six or seven or eight decades from today.
I’ve been thinking about this ever since the 缅北禁地 reported on a recent gathering of 40- and 50-year-olds in a Uniontown neighborhood; every three years, these men, and several women apparently, get together to play ball on their old stomping ground in Laurel Terrace.
I know Laurel Terrace. I know the vacant lot where the game was played. I grew up on Brown Street -115 Brown St., to be precise. I too played ball -baseball — on that field, only earlier. The last time was probably 1962 or 1963. I was a near-middle teen, about ready to get behind the wheel of a car.
The 缅北禁地’s Joyce Koballa reported the men and women of her story began playing wiffle ball on the Areford Boulevard lot in the late sixties and early seventies. So we missed each other. By 10 years or so.
I had no idea. All this time I thought we — myself, Jim Winning, Joe Delahunt, and other Laurel Terrace boys of the late 1950s and early 1960s — were the field’s sole proprietors. The first and only ones to play there. It says something about how blind we are, how self-centered, self-interested, and egotistical.
I’m speaking only of myself, of course, though I think it’s an observation that can be fairly applied to just about everyone, at one time or another.
In fact, we humans are by nature myopic. It’s the reason, I suspect, every generation considers its music the best, the finest that’s ever been played and, conversely, the music of the rising generation the worst. “Oh, my, I can’t stand (big bands) (Elvis) (The Beatles) (hip hop).”
For generations, exasperated parents have been declaring, “That music is ruining you kids!”
It’s also the reason, though not the only reason, every generation thinks it discovered a little thing called sex. Talk about ego.
To be farsighted is just not normal. That’s why it can be so jarring, and surprising, when you encounter the real thing. When Social Security was being considered in 1935-36, the president, Franklin Roosevelt, said he wanted to be fair to Americans living in the 1970s as well as to Americans around at the time.
When I first read what FDR had to say, I was mighty impressed.
I’m sure there are deep psychological reasons for the way people relate to the past as well as the future. In general, for most of us, the past is always rosy, the future always bleak. In other words, we lack the ability to look with a keen eye both backward and forward.
The past we conjure is warm and fuzzy. We somehow forget the hours weighted down with anxiety, uncertainty, rejection, and heartbreak. We survived the past, we know how it turned out, and the bad stuff is either forgotten and forgiven. At least that’s what we go around saying.
As for the future, it’s not in our hands but in the hands of people who are just not as balanced and intelligent as we are, who don’t have the same grip on life, who sway to different rhythms. The music of their lives is simply impossible. They are damaged goods, a ruined lot. I tell you, the world’s in a bad way.
What about those boys on Downer Avenue years ago now? We just don’t know, do we, how it went for them. Just about the only thing we know for sure is that they were on their way to play ball, an experience many of us can relate to.
The boys of Laurel Terrace, circa 1970, still seem to be enjoying themselves. The question for myself and my friends playing baseball on the Areford Boulevard lot is this: how did we do it without cracking more windows? I remember a few shattered panes of glass. The neighbors must have groused, “Those boys, cussing like they do and breaking windows, they’ll never amount to anything!”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our PeopleHe can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.