they had a deal at my grade school that if you made the honor roll you got to go to a Cubs game.
i did not make the honor roll due to a technicality but my sister did.
the technicality was i didnt give a flying fuck about the honor roll.
until i was out on the sod farm with my friends playing baseball that afternoon and we heard on the radio that we had carried out there that the game was 17-6 heading into the bottom of the 4th inning.
so we grabbed our stuff, got on our bikes and hauled ass to the nearest kids’ house to watch the game.
it was windy that afternoon which is why the game had so much scoring.
the phillies were mighty with the likes of Mike Schmidt and Larry Bowa, two of my favorite non-Cubs. Greg Luzinski might have still been on that team too – WHO CAN REMEMBER THAT FAR BACK I WAS BARELY ALIVE.
the game ended in nailbiter: 23-22. and i wasnt there. the “smart kids” from my school were there. our friends. many of whom couldnta named one Cub if they tried other than Ryne Sandberg
and it taught me right there and then and stuck with me forever that life isnt fair.
the phillies will beat the cubs. the non sports fans will go to one of the coolest games ever. that your sister will get things that rightfully belong to you.
but in the end, life will go on.
last night i drove a kid, a middle schooler, from a big house in the hollywood hills, to a gated mansion behind two gates in the beverly hills hills called beverly crest.
as we drove past the security check point i said, you gotta tell me, why is it that kids dont even play in the streets in gated communities? do you really just want to play video games and listen to music?
he said, all we want to do is play video games.
and i dropped him off in front of a giant wall. as i turned around i saw him speaking into a speaker box. and as i pulled away i saw the giant gates open and he entered to go inside to play with his friend.
if Uber was around in 1979, for sure me and my friends would have ubered to that freaking game.
the past tells me what i did where i was what went wrong what went right