Friday, August 28, 2020

hey, Sam, here's a guy you'll really like

Dear Blaxstone,
I was checking on fb to see what the final score was in that baseball game I was at tonight.
Yeah, I left early, but you would have, too.
They were going to have fireworks tonight, which normally wild horses couldn't have dragged me away from, but in this year of COVID-19 pandemic, with the announcer urging everyone into the aluminum bleachers or the third-base picnic area...
well, I had been at both places, and I didn't want to be in a mob scene with a bunch of unmasked children and their siblings and parents.
No, no, thank you.
So, like I said, I was looking to see if the Bananas had managed a last-minute win.
I doubt it, as it was bottom of the 9th when I left and the Bacon was ahead four runs.
I never did find out the score.
While checking on friends in the path of Hurricane Laura, I got sidetracked.
I don't even remember whose page blared the headline at me, I just recall the shock and disbelief.
Sadly, the twitter feed was correct: Chadwick Boseman is dead.
He was right at your age, too, kid.
It's hard to say exactly, as one place has him born in 1977, and the other in 1976.
So, he was either 42, like you, or 43, which you were just a month away from.
I think y'all would get along very well, so see if you can find him, okay?
He played T'Challa, aka Black Panther, in four of the Marvel Avengers movies.
I wish you could have been here - physically, ya know - to share those movies with me!


He was pretty amazing in those films, but I already knew of him from a baseball movie.
He played Jackie Robinson in "42" and he was phenomenal!
Seriously, he was so true to the real man that it put him on my radar.
That movie came out in 2013, but I only got to see it once on the silver screen.
School responsibilities, ya know.
But it really made an impact.
The next time that I was in Daytona Beach guess where I went?
Jackie Robinson Ballpark - and I even caught the fireworks show!
You know me, I was down there to celebrate my birthday, as I am wont to do, and it happened to be Memorial Day weekend... bonus for me!
That happened to be the last year for the Daytona Cubs, who I'd been watching since 2011, at least, but not the last year for Single-A baseball at that stadium.
Hallelujah for that!
The next year, 2015, I was right back there, even catching a complete baseball game with the new boys of summer, the Daytona Tortugas, to go along with the fireworks!
And somewhere along the way, in 2016 - at least, I think it was for birthday58 - or maybe it was 2017 - I even signed up for a Silver Slugger membership, with several free games for those over 55... mostly because I wanted the t-shirt!
Hey, I didn't mind that it branded me as an 'older' woman - I acknowledge all my years...
and all my gray hair, too.
(smile!)
Anywho...
I seem to have wandered off topic.
I know, I know... again.
(smile!)
As I said, I just wanted to let you know one of the good guys had made it over to your side of the universe.
Hope y'all manage to find each other - and Stan Lee - and talk about comic books.
Excelsior!
(smile)
Miss ya, kid.
with my love, always

2 comments:

faustina said...

Barbara contacted me last night.
She'd stumbled upon one of the tv channels dispensing with their regular programming to show "Black Panther".
Sadly, they were showing the Spanish-dubbed version, much as they'd done for "The Ten Commandments" this past Easter.
I had alerted the ex that the movie was on, and up in Michigan, they made sure it was the ENGLISH version.
Here in Savannah, they had mistakenly selected the wrong version from the satellite feed - as they did again tonight.
As I as saying, one of mi tres amigas had alerted me that it was on.
She had not known that Chadwick Boseman had spent the last four years having surgery and treatments for colon cancer. I had not known until his death.
I'm glad I'd seen him in "42", when he was healthy and vibrant.

faustina said...

I went to see "42" tonight and found myself crying repeatedly.
Partly, it was due to the loss of the talented actor, with so many more roles in his future and a young family left behind.
Mostly, though, it was because of the loss of you, Sam.
Oh, to have one more night of laughing over silly fortune cookies and the things said by folks who called the radio station!
Damn, kid.
You were gone too soon.