will you still need me?
feed me? Who could ask for more?
when I’m sixty-four

Not sure how this happened, which seems to be a common feeling, but I start my 64th year today.

Because of family history and often told family stories, I know that was I born around noon so as I write this, I still have 5 hours to go.

I know it was around noon because I was born on a Sunday and my Mom planned a family dinner after church and while I interrupted her day, my Aunt Marion came over and pulled the dinner together so all my brothers and sisters were sitting around the table when my Dad came home from the hospital to announce it was a boy.

All the boys cheered and my sisters all cried as it would have been a tie game had I been a girl.

I was 8th in what would be a family of 11 kids.

When I was 4, my Dad got a place on the shore of Lake Michigan just south of Grand Haven where we spent out summers so my birthday was almost always celebrated out at the lake.

In 1966, my Mom and Dad took me into Grand Haven to WT Grants and said I could pick out anything I wanted for my birthday.

In my mind the toy aisle stretched out sight to the left and right and towered over me.

I am not sure how long it took as my Father was generous but not real patient, a buyer not a shopper, and I selected an orange truck with a working steam shovel type crane that I could raise and lower and scoop up sand.

I am sure I had Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel in mind when I picked out as I always liked Mike as we shared a first name.

Which, as I am sure I have mentioned before, brings me to the topic of my name.

See, Mike had already been used as a first name in my family.

My brother Tim was born back in 1956 and was named Mike … for about 3 days.

Then my Dad said, ‘Nope, he doesn’t look like a Mike‘ and when the paper work was filled, he became Timothy John.

4 years later when I showed up, my Dad decided I did look like a Mike and Michael James Hoffman was listed on my paperwork.

Not sure what that says or means, but it had to have messed up paperwork in the global accounting of life somewhere.

The moment I got my truck home was captured on film by my Dad with his Nikon camera.

I posed with an army shovel and my new truck, ready to take on the world and all the dirt and sand I could find.

Scrapes and bruises that any 6 year old would have acquired over a summer and one shoe untied, that’s me.

Behind me in the picture are my three sisters, Mary, Lisa and Janet, who are plainly thrilled by my new truck and that it was my birthday.

That was 58 years ago and with the help of the photos, I can feel it, I can smell it.

As Jim Harrison writes in his book, Sundog, “So much of the emotional content of our lives seems to occur before we are nineteen or twenty … “

Now I am 64.

And by chance as I type this out at my desk near the ocean, the 3rd movement of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 2 starts playing on the radio and it is one of my favorites.

A piece of music impossible to listen to and not feel light and light hearted.

I will take it as a good omen for things yet to come.

It is my birthday.

What can I do but, and when will I ever get the chance again, to quote Sir Paul?

When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine

If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four

You’ll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride

Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four

Every summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight, if it’s not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck and Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four

will you still need me?
feed me? Who could ask for more?
When I’m sixty-four

the dog did not bark
Gehrig did not play … my Dad
saw it not happen

Going through the New York Times this morning, I read the article, MLB City Connect: All 29 uniforms ranked, from the so-so to the sublime (click here to read and view the uniforms).

These are Major League Baseball uniforms that are part of Nike’s planned three-year cycle of cityinspired fits.

City Inspired means that the uniform captures the look, the feel, the vibe (in the City of Detroit’s case, Nike chose a pattern of tire tread’s to signify that the city has been run over I guess) of any given Major League city.

Nobody asked me but if somebody asked me, I would say they look like someone asked CHAT GTi to ‘DESIGN THE UGLIEST, DUMBEST most AWFUL Uniforms possible.’

If that WAS the intent, then Nike did a great job.

If that wasn’t the intent, I fail to grasp what they wanted to do.

If, as it is presented at it’s most base level, the goal was to sell more T-Shirts, I am not sure I know anyone who would wear anyone of these new looks.

In contrast I offer this picture.

This is Lou Gehrig.

The Iron Man.

The feller who held the record for 50 years of most consecutive major league baseball game played.

It was Grand Rapids Michigan native and GR Catholic Central grad, Wally Pipp who played 1st base for the Yankee’s who on June 2, 1925, told the manager he wanted to sit out as he had a headache.

The Yankee’s put in Mr. Gehrig who then played the next 2,130 games for Yankee’s at 1st base and Mr. Pipp became the moral of not missing a day at work stories.

Look at the uniform in this picture.

Everything about it is so right as almost everything in those Nike cItyinspired fits gets wrong.

This was the uniform of the New York Yankees.

The team that represented the city of New York.

The team Darth Vador would have played for.

The easy confidence of being number 1 and knowing it drips out of the logo on the cap, the simple black capital letters, and the smile on Mr. Gehrig’s face.

They were on top and their city was on top and they knew it and so did the rest of the world.

I have always loved this photo.

Both for its content AND its construction as a photo.

The grays and the blacks.

The dugout.

The bench.

And the story.

See, this photo is captioned, “New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig watches from the dugout during warmups as his Iron Man streak ends in Detroit, May 2, 1939.”

This is the day when Mr. Gehrig finally gave in to the way he felt and said he couldn’t play.

He didn’t know it, but he had Lou Gehrig’s Disease or Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neurone disease (MND).

That diagnosis wouldn’t be released for another couple weeks, on June 19, 1939.

I remember liking this photo so much, that I took the book it was in, The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It by Lawrence S. Ritter, and showed the picture to my Dad.

Dad took the book and studied the photograph.

Then he said, “I was at that game.”

He didn’t say anything else about it but I was impressed and that nugget stayed in my brain.

It clicked that the game must have been in Detroit and that my Dad had made the trip down there from Grand Rapids where he lived and where I grew up, to watch the Tigers play the Yankee’s and was a witness to history of Mr. Gehrig’s last game.

Looking at this picture brought this memory back for me and I wondered about the box score for the game.

I searched, “Lou Gehrig’s last game” and got a bit of a shock.

Lou Gehrig’s last game wasn’t May 2nd.

According to the records, Lou Gehrig’s last game was April, 30th, in New York.

I knew my Dad had not been in New York City in 1939.

Or at least I was pretty sure and if he had been, he never mentioned it.

What was going on here.

Could my Dad have been mistaken?

Could my Dad have made it up?

I have to say it really bothered me that for years I had it in my mind that Dad had been there.

And now it seems, he wasn’t.

I thought about it some more.

I checked Gehrig’s playing record and there it was.

He played his last game, ever, on April 30, 1939.

In Yankee Stadium.

On April 30, 1939, the batting records, the numbers, everything, all stop.

I don’t mind telling you I was pretty blue.

Then it hit me.

I was searching for the wrong day.

The dog DID NOT bark.

On May 2, 1939, in Tiger Stadium, Gehrig DID NOT PLAY.

Gehrig did not play for the 1st time since 1925.

And my Dad, 19 years old in the spring of 1939, was there.

I often think of my Dad.

He was a Dentist and in fact, started Dental School that fall in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I have always wondered if he was in Ann Arbor to register or something when he decided to drive over to the ball game in Detroit.

I can see him sitting the table with the baseball book in his hands, studying this photograph.

The one with the Tiger Stadium stands in the background.

It was probably about 40 years after it happened that Dad was looking at that book with me.

I think that is was about 40 years ago that me and my Dad had this conversation.

My Dad might have been sitting at the table with me but I bet in his mind he was 19 and sitting in Tiger Stadium.

Just another memory of me and my Dad.

Got a lot of them and I feel lucky to have them.

By the way, in that photo is another Yankee ballplayer wearing number 11.

That is the great Lefty Gomez.

You might not remember him, but I bet you remember for what he said,

“I’d rather be … ,” said Lefty, “ … lucky than good.“

cribbage master is
a masterpiece – the only …
complete cribbage board

Fifteen two.

Fifteen four.

Fifteen six.

And a double run for 14.

And the Jack for 15.

I can hear my Dad saying it as we played cribbage.

“Lot of power in that kitty”, my Dad would say as he discarded.

That meant there were 5’s, 10’s or face cards in there.

My Dad loved card games.

We all learned poker and a game we called Minnesota Red Dog.

Some of us learned Pinochle but I couldn’t handle dealing multiple cards at a time.

And cribbage.

You would be sitting there.

Dad would walk by and stop and look at you.

“Cribbage?”, he was ask?

You would say yes and you would be playing cribbage to save your life.

My Dad only knew one way to play and that was take no prisoners.

My Dad’s cards showed on his face.

The look on my Dad’s face if he had held a double run of 5,5,6 and 7, discarded two face cards and turned a 5, told the entire story of what was in his hand.

“Cribbage?”, he was ask?

Playing cribbage with my Dad using a Druke Cribbage board.

Playing cribbage with my Dad always using a Druke Cribbage board.

Made in Grand Rapids.

If you grew up in Grand Rapids, like I did, you knew the building on the West Side with the Chess Set Knight on it.

But it was paging through an old copy of New Yorker magazine that Druke Games came to mind.

In the October 30, 1948 edition, I came across this ad.

With the text: Drueke’s Cribbage Master is a masterpiece for the “fifteen Two” fans. A Once-Around board, it has an additional new feature of playing corners, games, points, skunks and high hands. The only complete cribbage board. #3.50 at better stores everywhere.

My first thought was of all the places for this Grand Rapids company to advertise but the New Yorker?

Really?

Then thinking about the New Yorker and 1948 and the New York City crowd of the late.

And though some more about Druke games.

Classic cribbage boards and chess sets.

And I thought.

Where else?

love you more yet, child,
knowing so well what you are
ahead and beyond

Adapted from:

“I love you,”
said a great mother.
“I love you for what you are
knowing so well what you are.
And I love you more yet, child,
deeper yet than ever, child,
for what you are going to be,
knowing so well you are going far,
knowing your great works are ahead,
ahead and beyond,
yonder and far over yet.”

Written by Carl Sandburg and published in The People, Yes! (New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1936).

The preface to The People, Yes! states, “Being several stories and psalms nobody would want to laugh at …”

Wikipedia says, “Published at the height of the Great Depression, the work lauds the perseverance of the American people in notably plain-spoken language. It was written over an eight-year period. It is Sandburg’s last major book of poetry.”

The perseverance of the American people.

Today is Mother’s Day, 2024.

My Mom was born in 1924.

For the last 100 years her presence, personality and memory has persevered.

There is a joke about Dutch people, Dutch Calvinists to be more specific, that they were worried that somewhere, someone was having a good time.

That wasn’t my Mom.

If anything, she was concerned that somewhere, someone was having a goodtime and she wasn’t a part of it.

My brother Paul had relocated to North Carolina and would drive his family up through the mountains of West Virginia to Michigan for the Christmas / New Years holidays.

(Now that I live in South Carolina, and make that trip I am more amazed at my brother’s efforts.)

One year it worked out that they couldn’t make it and my Mom and Dad and my two youngest brothers made the trip down there.

I had to stay in Michigan and I called one of my sisters and we decided to arrange a New Years Eve family get together anyway.

That night the phone rang and it was Mom calling to wish me a Happy New Year.

I thanked her and told that we very having a party anyway and everyone was over.

There was a pause.

Then Mom says, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” then a pause, “I wish we were there.“

She always loved a family party and did not like missing a good time.

As she got older, her love of a good time persevered through any bad time.

She focused herself on the good things and the good news and happy people.

I remember one time when I had driven her to the local grocery super store in West Michigan called Meijer’s (we called it Meijer’s as it was Fred’s store and everyone knew Fred) and as we did her shopping she watched the crowd.

Anytime she spotted any two or more people in a bunch talking and laughing she would say out loud, “Oh, they look they are having a good time.“

And she would quickly turn and move in their direction to see if she might fit into the group or at least find out what made them all laugh.

That she was pushing her grocery cart through the aisles just made these sudden direction changes all the more exciting.

She had a big heart.

And she had a perseverance that deserves to be lauded.

I never heard her read or recite this poem by Mr. Sandburg.

But I felt it.

But I knew it.