Thrilling is a word that I don't use very often, but when I do I reserve it for those singular moments in life when you experience something you've never experienced before.
I've had a few moments like this. The kind of moment that resonates within you and the joy of the occasion comes flooding back to you. The memory of it forces you to feel it all over again. A kind of positive PTSD if you will. Being an urban school teacher this sort of thing doesn't happen very often and that's more than okay. No one has a life totally filled joy and satisfaction. We just aren't wired that way and even if we were we would find something to gripe about.
Two occasions that thrilled me to my core involved two of the founding fathers, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. I was chaperoning an 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. and we went to Mount Vernon. I almost missed getting on the bus with my group because I was so enraptured by a very old key encased in plexiglas. My friend and colleague Bruce Houston came back to get me. He was little huffed because he had a schedule to keep.
"What are you doing?" he asked me.
"That's a key to the Bastille, man," I told him.
"Yeah, that's cool," he said or words to that effect. "We got a lot to see, you know?"
"That's a key to the fucking Bastille!" I whisper-yelled. "Lafayette gave it to him."
"You're killing me, Nickels," Bruce sighed.
So we got on the bus, but I've relived seeing that key a thousand times. Part of what made it so thrilling is that it was such a profoundly personal thing to be that close to a real piece of history. As a boy, I had loved learning about the American Revolution and read books about Washington and Lafayette--my favorite French person if it's not too weird to have one of those.
On another occasion, while vacationing with the family in Virginia, I drove to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, my favorite president. He was a writer, a thinker, a farmer, an inventor and a statesman. Like Washington, he was also a friend to Lafayette.
The Monticello tour guide described him by saying, "It was said that Thomas Jefferson stood 6'3" and he was straight as a gun barrel...he was up before the Sun every day of his life." He has always been an American Renaissance man to me and it was thrilling for me to walk where he walked.
Any way, those two solitary experiences rank among some of the most significant moments of my life, but they were solitary moments for the most part. You see, last night was different. I accompanied 9 of my colleagues to Cincinnati to watch a baseball game.
The idea for the trip came about because we didn't have school today (Friday 4/22). This was due to the fact that we had not had a snow day this winter. A rare occurrence in Indiana to be sure and if we had just gone to the game it would have been a memorable experience.
We loaded up into a large passenger van that Tim Barthel had arranged to rent for us. Steve Gretencord ordered the tickets and we went there just to watch a ball game and have fun. We had no idea that the "bang we got for our buck" was going to take a quantum leap. You, see last night Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs threw a no hitter and it was in a word ...thrilling. You had to be there--it's part of the thrill.
Unlike the previously mentioned thrilling moments this was a collective experience. What a privilege to have shared it with 9 men that I profoundly respect. Our ages ranged from 49 to 65. Like they say, "Age is just a number." There was only one math teacher among us so we didn't really dwell on it too long.
Obviously, I'm biased, but teachers are really special people. There is nothing in the world like having fun with a bunch of guys that do the same thing you do. Guys that know what it's like to endure the shared experience of what Hemingway called "quiet desperation." If you're a regular reader, then this is a familiar gripe of mine. Please forgive the digression, but teachers need to vent on occasion and it's a privilege to be able to vent to these guys.
I will honor the words of my friend, Chris Meguschar, "What's said in the van stays in the van!"
That van was more like a magic bus or a time machine because it turned a bunch of tired-old-into the last grading period-teachers into college boys. The laughter was constant, the teasing was all good-natured, and we let a soothing, cathartic fellowship soak into our bones. We ate salty snacks and washed them down in the way that people over the age of 21 are allowed to do.
The game itself was great and for the most part we were all hoping the Cubs would win. There were multiple home runs and the Cubs had the game well in hand by the end of the 5th inning. They added 8 more runs by the top of the 7th inning and at the middle of the 7th my friend Steve turned to me.
"He's 9 outs away."
"Yeah, he is," was my response.
That was when it really hit me and the others that we were in rarified air. The announcer said there were 16,497 people in attendance. There weren't that many in the 42,319 seat Great American Ballpark. Shakespeare wrote, "We few, we happy few..."
We all seemed to begin to watch the game more intently. I don't remember a single past ball. The Chicago infielders and outfielders were locked in and you could hear their communal thought.
"I'll be damned if I'm going to be the one to fuck this thing up."
There was no doubt they were trying their best to help Jake Arrieta do this wonderful amazing thing.
I've seen championships, been to a lot of big games, but this was different. With every pitch, strike, ball, catch and throw the night intensified.
"C'mon, kid. Bust 'em up!" I yelled as Arrieta took the mound as the bottom of the 9th inning began.
Finally at the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs and a 2-2 count Jake Arrieta threw his 119th pitch and the ball popped up for the final out. We all high-fived one another and let the out-and-out rarity of what we had just seen soak in.
"You can't write that shit," I thought to my self.
And to my colleagues, I say, "Thanks for a great evening, boys!"
Thanks for stopping by and staying to the end.
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