Making Old New Again

We all have memories we would like to re-live and some we would just as soon forget. They exist,  good or bad, to remind us of what makes us happy and what not to repeat again.

Thomas Jefferson, who seemed to speak as if he knew he would be quoted forever, said "I like the dream of the future better than the history of the past." For me this journey that I have started is my dream, feeling better, looking better and just adding years to my life so that I can create new memories that include my family and my grandchildren.

But the history of my past is what is motivating me, so sorry Mr Jefferson, but I need to dwell in the past once in awhile. First of all the weight I had reached would have been a bowling average to be envied. Slowly, almost too slowly, the pounds are falling and that will be a past I hope to never repeat.

This week also rekindled a memory I hold dear and would love to repeat again with one of my grandkids. It was a day that my son Kyle and I will treasure.

Kyle and I have a shared passion, sports. There is little we are able to talk about beyond that, although he and his Mom can find a multitude of topics to talk about into the wee hours of the night. I guess he just plays to my strengths. Part of that passion is our love of stadiums, preferably the old but the new have their advantages. I went so far as to plan a weeks journey for he and I that would have taken us from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia to Washington DC, then on to Baltimore, New York and ending up in Boston, seeing a baseball game in the stadiums of those cities, all new except for the finale at Fenway Park.  This trip has moved to the bucket list and each season I check the schedules to see if its possible.

We did see a game at Wrigley Field and experienced a Monday Night Football game at Lambeau Field, but one stadium is just a little more special, mainly because it no longer stands.

1999 was the final season for Tiger Stadium in Detroit, a stadium that had seen better days, but still held on to a part of baseball history. I had never seen the stadium and I wanted Kyle and I to experience an old baseball stadium together and this was the closest to home. It was a Friday night game with the Boston Red Sox near the end of July and we had bought tickets in the lower deck in the right field corner.

We arrived in Detroit and the stadium in the early afternoon. Lunch was on the agenda and keeping with the nostalgia of the day, Kyle picked Casey's Pub a neighborhood bar two clocks from the stadium, because they had a sign that said "Great Cheeseburgers." So Casey's it was. Besides the locals who had their places at the bar, there were a few tables and we chose our seats and ordered our cheeseburgers.

At the next table was an older couple who quickly struck up a conversation with us, probably to find out why a grown man brought a 13 year old boy into a bar on Michigan Avenue in the middle of the afternoon. It turned out, they were there  for the same reason as Kyle and I, killing time before the baseball game. But they came to Tiger Stadium for a different reason, to see their beloved Red Sox. They were Fenway Park season ticker holders, had been for years, so they had prime tickets for every Red Sox game. We spent the afternoon experiencing Fenway through their eyes and memories but this was just the beginning of a day that could never be repeated.

We departed Casey's and our new friends to catch the tour of Tiger Stadium, seeing Ernie Harwell's tiny broadcast booth that seemed to hang directly over home plate and the famous in play flag pole in center field. This stadium, although it had a death sentence at the end of the season, was quickly becoming a new friend.

As we waited at the corner of Trumbell and Michigan for the gates to open we once again met our new friends from Boston. They just happened to have two extra tickets to the game. We had ours but their's offered bit of a different view, 6 rows behind the Tigers dugout. They were ours as long as I promised not to sell them.

I don't have words that have not already beed used by much better writers than I to describe that night and what we got to see but they are images that have a special place in my own gallery of memories.

This week I returned to "The Corner" where the stadium once stood. All that remains is the field that is maintained not by experienced grounds crews, but volunteers who trespass with their lawnmowers to keep the heart of this otherwise vacant lot beating. The famous flagpole still stands in what used to be center field with the 1984 World Series Banner flying proudly. Beyond that you have to draw on experience and memories to appreciate what was once there. Even with just our one game experience, it is a bit emotional to stand there looking through the fence and wishing once again you could go back in time and witness a small piece of baseball history.

These are the dreams I hold for the future with my grandkids, that together,  we will share an interest and find a way to experience it in person, whether it's a book, a place, the arts or sports, I want to give to them the gift Kyle and I received that July day in 1999, a day that will live as long as we do, if only in our memories.

As far as the Journey to a better me, there has been weight loss and I am adapting to life without potato chips and bread and pasta. Eventually some of that will creep back into my diet, but not until I adapt to portion controls and more of this extra Matt is lost. I attempted to take what is called a "recreational" walk but found that muscles need activity, regularly or they revolt in order to teach you a lesson. Mine began their own revolution against me just 4 blocks from our house,  which as I turned to return to,  seemed to have move to the next county in distance. But I huffed and puffed my way back those 4 blocks and wondered what have I done. I know it's baby steps and months from now I will wonder why I didn't do it sooner. It's too early for this life to become a vacant lot so the rebuilding continues and each day new improvements will lead to a smaller but better me, which sad to say is the way of new baseball stadiums.

Good Wine, Good Friends....Good God!!!

It's a well known fact that things like wine and single malt scotch get better through the process of fermentation and as they age, their value rises, their taste improves and well, they just get better with age. So that thought drew me to the dictionary to see what ferment really meant.

Ferment: To be in a state of agitation or intense activity....who knew what really goes on in those barrels.

So what does fermentation have to do with this blog. Well, like wine and scotch we like to think our lives and our bodies get better with age. But speaking for this tired old bag of bones and skin, the only thing getting better for me are the odds I will not reach the ripeness of old age and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I am quickly spoiling and  my ability to better with age will be lost.

Over the past month or so, there have been, lets say, warning flags or as comedian Bill Engvall calls them, signs for the stupid, like getting my fat ass stuck in a chair or just not being able to maintain my body hygiene...nuff said....I am bigger today than I have ever been in my life. I have also been diagnosed with sleep apnea that has cost me financially, physically and mentally as well as strained a 33 year old marriage. After enduring a sleep study that revealed collapsing airways every 30 seconds and blood oxygen levels only the dead would have envied, I now sleep with a machine that allows me to sleep like most people. Before my Bi-pap machine, I was falling asleep while sitting up which caused me to fall into things like furniture or off of chairs. In a movie it would be called slap-stick, for me it was a slap in the face.

So that began phase one of getting better with age. My apnea was affecting my life in a very negative way, but it also provided me with an excuse not to do anything physically, I was just too tired. Remember part of fermenting is intense activity so I am not getting better, I am just stinking up the place. Now after 10 days, I feel I have more energy, but I fear I am going to miss my dear friend, the excuse of being too tired.

So I have experienced warning flags, ah-ha moments and signs of stupidity, but today I got hit upside the head as I came face to face with my ever growing problem, I bought a scale.

Those digital numbers will never replace a dog as man's best friend but today the number 288 will not be my pick three or the beginning of a new pin number. That my friends is my current weight. It's not a surprise. All I have to do is look at pictures of special events in my families lives to document my increasing footprint on planet earth.

I also know I am very lucky that my wake up calls, including today's $20.00 purchase, have not involved great physical harm in the form of heart attacks or strokes, but I too often feel I am treading on ice thick enough to hold a car but for me it's becoming increasingly thin.

So today I proclaim war on weight, the fight against fat and a battle against bulge. As a part of this skirmish, I will use this blog and its readers to hold me accountable. I know I am setting my self up for failure and embarassment  by publishing this and future blog posts, but nothing else has worked to motivate me to make these necessary changes so why not success through humiliation.

There are personal reasons....I want to track my success or failure as a reminder in the future as changes continue to be made, good or bad.  It is also a writing challenge for me to have this as a part of my routine. This means it won't always be about weight gain or loss  or how many miles I have walked.

I also have a pretty cool job that is fun to talk about as a producer-director for ESPN, doing college sports. So there will also be updates and thoughts about places I get to visit and things I get to cover in college football and basketball.

I also have three grown and great kids whose lives are changing constantly and a part of that is the soon to be arrival of our number two and three grandchildren. That alone should be the motivation I need to get me started and to conquer my enemy  and my fear of failure.

And more than anything, I have a very caring and supportive wife, Julie, who rides this roller coaster of a life with me. I'm quite sure there are many times she would like to get off and see me ride alone without the safety bar, but for some reason she is always there beside me.

So there it is. I stand naked before you....not to worry I will not include before pics....my hopes and fears published for those who care or can tolerate the goings on of an average life documented by an average writer. I have a diet plan and an exercise program that includes a gym membership that last year cost me $600.00 per visit....well one visit and $50.00 per month. I also have goals. Not so much a number, but a present to myself. You see in October of 2015 I will turn 60. At one time I played and enjoyed golf even though I never broke 90 I don't think. But on or near my 60th birthday, I want to be physically able to play Pebble Beach Golf Links, walking with a caddy and re-learn the game of golf to finally break 90 strokes for 18 holes, maybe  not at Pebble Beach, but on regular basis.

I also have a number in mind, but know there are plateaus and weight levels that I will face and don't want a number as my only measurement of success. I also have clothes I want to wear again, be able to wear a tie and button the top button on a shirt, enjoy yard work again and not ache every day. But more than anything I want to see and enjoy what my Dad didn't get to witness, grandchildren grow up.

Someone once said "Next year I will be older than I have ever been before." Kind of a Yogi Berra statement but to know I will be able to see next year and the years after as I keep getting older than last year, I will know everyday, I am getting better with age.