First Words, First Memory, First Dream
#1 First Words
My first words, according to my dad, were either the Sportscenter theme song--"Duh, nuh, nuh...duh, nuh, nuh"--or "Bud," which one of the regulars at the bar where my dad worked taught me to say while slamming my empty milk bottle down on the rail for a refill. Either way, I'm proud, but my mom couldn't be less pleased, so for the sake of keeping her happy, I say my first real word was "Mama."
#2 First Memory
My first memory is hard to pinpoint; there are three candidates that come to mind, but two lack credibility and all are pretty fuzzy. The oldest comes from when I was less than one year old, in the Georgia State University daycare in downtown Atlanta, where my dad was taking classes, studying to be an English major. The memory is strange and questionable because it feels like I'm looking down on myself, hovering over my body with a bird's eye view, and I'm just watching as I crawl up a blue padded ramp leading into a plastic Fisher Price playground. I'm wearing cute denim overalls that my mom probably dressed me in, and as I'm heading up the ramp, I look to my left and see a little black boy next to me. We're about the same size and age and it feels like we're friends...and that's the end of the memory: it's like a two-second GIF.
The second candidate comes from that same period of time when my dad was at Georgia State, when he checked me out of daycare early one night, hurried me up to the top deck of the parking garage, and, as he tells the story now, didn't full-on hold me over the wall Michael Jackson-style like a lunatic, but he did lift me up enough to see the action in the streets below. The date must have been close to April 26, 1992, which I couldn't possibly know at the time would be the title of a song by my future favorite band, and the commotion throughout the city was the beginning of a riot in outrage to the newly-released footage of Los Angeles police officers beating innocent black man Rodney King to death, cold in the street. My dad says we only watched for a few minutes and then got the hell out of there as fast as we could since, at that moment, urban Atlanta probably wasn't the safest place for a white man and his baby. What I'm not sure if I believe, though, is if I actually do remember this night--if I really did hear windows breaking and see dumpsters on fire and cars getting flipped upside-down--or if I only want to remember it and have thus created a false memory because I think riots and revolution are cool just like my dad. Regardless, I find it interesting that I was a part of this night in any form, and in light of the recent race-relation developments, I think we should all pause for a second to ask if anything has changed...
My third memory is the most vivid and most likely to have really happened: it's a beautiful night at the baseball field and I'm watching my dad play softball with his stupid bar-league team, sitting on the aluminum bleachers under the massive bright lights. Again, coincidentally, there's a black boy next to me, and again, I feel like we're friends and we're both here to watch our dads. I think I remember playing catch together when neither of our dads were up to bat, but I can't remember his name and my dad doesn't either. Anyway, at the moment of this memory, my dad is playing center field, standing alone in acres of grass, bored and probably wishing he had a cigarrette and a beer; it's late in the game and I pause to watch as the guy at the plate hits a moon-shot, and my dad lets out an, "Oh shit" before taking off on a sprint. He tracks the ball down easily and gets under it with all the time in the world; maybe he shouts, "I got it" and thinks about getting cocky like Andruw Jones. When the ball finally comes down, though--with the game on the line and the winning run on third--something happens--maybe he loses it in the lights--and the ball hits his glove and then bounces to the turf. In an instant--before he's even picked up the stupid, oversized ball and chucked it into the in-field--my dad yells out, "Mother-fucker!" as loud as he possibly can. Then he storms off the field, a red-faced loser, and says to me, "Let's go," and if I remember right, he smoked a cigarrette in the car and then bought my silence with Taco Bell.
#3 First Dream
From about the ages of two to six, all I wanted to do with my life was play baseball for the Atlanta Braves; I knew all the guys on our roster and sang "Put Me In, Coach!" everyday. My favorite players were Javy Lopez, the catcher, who got to wear all the cool gear, and our third baseman, Chipper Jones, who hit homeruns and made diving catches. When I got my hair cut during this time, I told the lady "A Chipper Jones Cut, please", but since she never knew what his hair looked like since he was always wearing a hat, I usually had to settle for a demeaning "Little Boy's Cut." And when I went to the games with my dad on weekday afternoons when he skipped class, I came decked out in full catcher's gear--chest-protector, backwards helmet, mask, shinguards, everything--and squatted down in the aisle next to my seat for nine innings...
In the backyard, I was something of a prodigy, really; my grandparents remember that when I was five years old I could toss a tennis ball up to myself and hit it all the way over the house. I could bat equally well from both sides of the plate and throw equally hard and accurately with either arm, which prompted my dad to draw up some rudimentary blueprints for a special glove that would fit both hands and make me the first "switch-pitter" the Majors had ever seen. When the rest of the family came over and we played big games in the backyard, I, being the only grandchild at the time and thus a victim of "Golden Child" syndrome, demanded that I be the all-time batter, while everyone else had to chase my hits. My dad's favorite story is that in '97, when we went to Turner Field for the very first time, he took me downstairs to the kids' zone pitching simulator, where I quietly stepped into the cage with my hat cocked to the side and unleashed three perfect fastballs that made the other dads say, "Oh shit."
For whatever reason, though, it wasn't to be: at some point in my childhood, my dad and I started playing soccer more and The Braves became less dominant. In light of how far soccer has taken me, I cannot possibly regret this switch, but it would be interesting to go back and see where that other path would have taken me. As it is, I'll be a Braves fan forever and have suffered every year since '95, and although the game itself bores me a bit now, I will always remember how much I loved it.
#2 First Memory
My first memory is hard to pinpoint; there are three candidates that come to mind, but two lack credibility and all are pretty fuzzy. The oldest comes from when I was less than one year old, in the Georgia State University daycare in downtown Atlanta, where my dad was taking classes, studying to be an English major. The memory is strange and questionable because it feels like I'm looking down on myself, hovering over my body with a bird's eye view, and I'm just watching as I crawl up a blue padded ramp leading into a plastic Fisher Price playground. I'm wearing cute denim overalls that my mom probably dressed me in, and as I'm heading up the ramp, I look to my left and see a little black boy next to me. We're about the same size and age and it feels like we're friends...and that's the end of the memory: it's like a two-second GIF.
The second candidate comes from that same period of time when my dad was at Georgia State, when he checked me out of daycare early one night, hurried me up to the top deck of the parking garage, and, as he tells the story now, didn't full-on hold me over the wall Michael Jackson-style like a lunatic, but he did lift me up enough to see the action in the streets below. The date must have been close to April 26, 1992, which I couldn't possibly know at the time would be the title of a song by my future favorite band, and the commotion throughout the city was the beginning of a riot in outrage to the newly-released footage of Los Angeles police officers beating innocent black man Rodney King to death, cold in the street. My dad says we only watched for a few minutes and then got the hell out of there as fast as we could since, at that moment, urban Atlanta probably wasn't the safest place for a white man and his baby. What I'm not sure if I believe, though, is if I actually do remember this night--if I really did hear windows breaking and see dumpsters on fire and cars getting flipped upside-down--or if I only want to remember it and have thus created a false memory because I think riots and revolution are cool just like my dad. Regardless, I find it interesting that I was a part of this night in any form, and in light of the recent race-relation developments, I think we should all pause for a second to ask if anything has changed...
My third memory is the most vivid and most likely to have really happened: it's a beautiful night at the baseball field and I'm watching my dad play softball with his stupid bar-league team, sitting on the aluminum bleachers under the massive bright lights. Again, coincidentally, there's a black boy next to me, and again, I feel like we're friends and we're both here to watch our dads. I think I remember playing catch together when neither of our dads were up to bat, but I can't remember his name and my dad doesn't either. Anyway, at the moment of this memory, my dad is playing center field, standing alone in acres of grass, bored and probably wishing he had a cigarrette and a beer; it's late in the game and I pause to watch as the guy at the plate hits a moon-shot, and my dad lets out an, "Oh shit" before taking off on a sprint. He tracks the ball down easily and gets under it with all the time in the world; maybe he shouts, "I got it" and thinks about getting cocky like Andruw Jones. When the ball finally comes down, though--with the game on the line and the winning run on third--something happens--maybe he loses it in the lights--and the ball hits his glove and then bounces to the turf. In an instant--before he's even picked up the stupid, oversized ball and chucked it into the in-field--my dad yells out, "Mother-fucker!" as loud as he possibly can. Then he storms off the field, a red-faced loser, and says to me, "Let's go," and if I remember right, he smoked a cigarrette in the car and then bought my silence with Taco Bell.
#3 First Dream
From about the ages of two to six, all I wanted to do with my life was play baseball for the Atlanta Braves; I knew all the guys on our roster and sang "Put Me In, Coach!" everyday. My favorite players were Javy Lopez, the catcher, who got to wear all the cool gear, and our third baseman, Chipper Jones, who hit homeruns and made diving catches. When I got my hair cut during this time, I told the lady "A Chipper Jones Cut, please", but since she never knew what his hair looked like since he was always wearing a hat, I usually had to settle for a demeaning "Little Boy's Cut." And when I went to the games with my dad on weekday afternoons when he skipped class, I came decked out in full catcher's gear--chest-protector, backwards helmet, mask, shinguards, everything--and squatted down in the aisle next to my seat for nine innings...
In the backyard, I was something of a prodigy, really; my grandparents remember that when I was five years old I could toss a tennis ball up to myself and hit it all the way over the house. I could bat equally well from both sides of the plate and throw equally hard and accurately with either arm, which prompted my dad to draw up some rudimentary blueprints for a special glove that would fit both hands and make me the first "switch-pitter" the Majors had ever seen. When the rest of the family came over and we played big games in the backyard, I, being the only grandchild at the time and thus a victim of "Golden Child" syndrome, demanded that I be the all-time batter, while everyone else had to chase my hits. My dad's favorite story is that in '97, when we went to Turner Field for the very first time, he took me downstairs to the kids' zone pitching simulator, where I quietly stepped into the cage with my hat cocked to the side and unleashed three perfect fastballs that made the other dads say, "Oh shit."
For whatever reason, though, it wasn't to be: at some point in my childhood, my dad and I started playing soccer more and The Braves became less dominant. In light of how far soccer has taken me, I cannot possibly regret this switch, but it would be interesting to go back and see where that other path would have taken me. As it is, I'll be a Braves fan forever and have suffered every year since '95, and although the game itself bores me a bit now, I will always remember how much I loved it.
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