I don’t remember playing catch with my dad. Or, as they weirdly phrased it in the 1989 baseball movie, Field of Dreams, “have a catch” with my dad. But I do have clear memories of dad hitting me baseballs.

“Will you hit me some?” I’d ask.

He almost always would.

Dad and I rarely talked deeply about life. Sports was our love language. More accurately, our love ritual.

He introduced me to football. “Let’s throw it around.” Basketball. “Wanna go shoot?” And baseball. “Get your glove.”

In suburban Cleveland, it wasn’t uncommon to have a yard with enough space to have someone with a bat throw the ball up and smack it out to you. Dad was good at it.

And I got good enough at catching that I didn’t want easy pop-ups or lazy fly balls. I wanted to “run for it.” I always had to end with a catch good enough to earn my dad’s praise.

“Dad, hit it over my head!”

After I mastered catching flies, Dad taught me how to play pepper. It taught me how to pick up ground balls so well that, when I was 12, I made the all-star team as a third baseman.

So, like with every other kid who played ball with his father, Field of Dreams is more than a movie. It’s a reminder of summers spent with the fathers we’ve lost.

__________

The real life field in Dyersville, Iowa (where Field of Dreams was filmed) was one of my can’t-miss places on my trip.

Except for intramural softball when I was in the Air Force, I never played organized baseball beyond 8th grade.

**Sorry for the poor quality photo, but that’s me, back row, 4th player from the left. (Not looking at the camera) My last baseball year.**

Yet, despite all the heart-tugging father-son baseball stuff, the part of Field of Dreams that affected me most came during the Moonlight Graham scene. So much so, that I’d share it with my high school students.

This line especially mesmerizes me.

We just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening.

Ever since I heard Burt Lancaster say that, I’ve tried to prove him wrong. I’ve made it an intention to recognize the significant moments in my life while they are happening.

Not just the big things — births, graduations, anniversaries, performances, vacations, holidays, injuries, illnesses, losses… — but the brief unexpected, unscripted moments.

At a dance competition, my six-year-old granddaughter, Dwyn, sat next to me, half watching the dancers and half watching her iPad. Without a word, she stopped watching both, held my hand and leaned her cheek onto my shoulder. After just a few seconds she went back to what she was doing.

I’m writing about it now because, during that moment, I recognized it as significant.

__________

As I wrote in Chapter 1, one of the purposes of my trip was to learn to deal with my fading physicality.

While driving around the country, it wasn’t much of an issue. I was able to stay healthy the entire 16,332 miles. I ran, swam, and worked out in gyms.

After exercising, I don’t feel like I’m fading.

But that’s day-to-day. When I compare myself to what I could do last week, month, or even last year, I don’t feel much different. But when I compare myself to what I could do 10, 20, or 50 years ago, the regression is jarring.

I felt it most at the Field of Dreams. They have balls, bats, and gloves so visitors without their own gear can play pick-up and try to hit one into the cornfield.

That’s what I wanted to do. But I swung at least three times without making contact with even the slowest pitch. It felt like I was inhabiting a non-baseball player’s body.

When I did hit it, the contact was embarrassing, and I ran like an old man. (Probably because I am an old man.)

Pitiful.

Initially, I rationalized. I haven’t touched a bat in years. The pitcher was bad. If I could practice for a couple of weeks, I’d be so much better … But I stopped myself. I made myself accept that I can’t do it anymore. That my best athletic days are decades in the past. There aren’t any 50-year-olds in the major leagues, and I was 67. What did I expect?

In my head, it made sense. I won’t lie though. I hated it.

I still do.

I hate it because I know it’s more than not being able to run, throw, and hit. Losing physical prowess reminds me of this:

We very literally fade (slope) away. Notice that my physical ability (generalized) now is literally less than my five-month old grandson.

What can I do about it? What can any of us do about it?

Not much.

Be active. Keep moving. Always have a “What’s next?”

Mostly, though, it’s the Serenity Prayer.

I have to accept that I cannot change the fact that physicality fades. Eventually, it disappears completely. But like Moonlight Graham and James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams, life can still be cool, right to the end.

Chapter 18: The Most Significant Moments of Our Lives

Chapter 17: Two Fails — Two Silver Linings