The Savannah Bananas and other Sports in my World

Is it ever going to warm up enough here West Michigan for me to set aside my bulky winter clothes? I doubt it. Right now, it's raining, and if you can believe the weather report Alex gives out upon request, it's 47 degrees outside. Inside, I'm still in my long flannel nightgown and bathrobe made out of sweatshirt material and I'm still cold. It's almost time to take my morning pills (10:00) and get my day officially started with what Victorian era women called their "morning absolutions." aka time spent on a chamber pot, taking a sponge bath, or in our time taking a shower, and getting dressed. Being a slave to routines, while on the 'chamber pot'---yes, I just went there, no pun intended---I play three games on my Kindle: one each of solitaire, the New York Times' Wordle and the Daily Quiddler at setgame. I judge my entire day's mental acuity by how well I play those games and I'm happy when I win all three games on the first try.

I've been up since 8:00 drinking coffee and stalking cyberspace for some pop culture of interest. Currently, Savannah Banana Baseball clips keep popping up on my Facebook Shorts.

Dad's team 

Of all the sports in the world, baseball (and golf to a lesser extend) are the only ones I have a passing interest in watching, but even with them I watch more for the memories that connect me to my dad and the fact that I can multi-task while they are on TV. Dad played on a baseball team of adults that was sponsored by local businesses in a city-wide league.

Dad is holding flag

 

 

 

 

 

And with golf, Dad caddied as a kid and it was a life-long passion of his to play and watch. Fast forward to a time when Dad was dying of cancer and Tiger Woods just broke the color barrier in professional golf to go on to win the 1999 PGA Championship. Dad was so proud that he had lived long enough to see America’s race relationships change that much. I read him every magazine article I could find on the Tiger. To this day I can't see Tiger without being grateful that he became a catalyst for the stories my dad shared about his childhood living in the south. Some were hair raising like the time he was a kid hiding in the woods watching the Klu Klux Klan hang a black man. He also saw cross burnings and the Klan raid houses in the Italian neighborhood where he lived, stealing anything of value they could find. His pride in what his generation accomplished is one of those things that makes me so upset with our current president who is set on destroying all the accomplishments I felt my generation was leaving behind.

Back in my early twenties which I call my Chameleon Days because I would change my likes and dislikes to match which ever guy I was dating at the time. I didn't do it on purpose, but it was the early sixties and I must have felt like that was the way the world worked. Wives (or those of us auditioning for the parts) followed the man's lead. Anyway, back then I took eighteen golf lessons and learned that I didn’t like following a little ball around but it earned me a few dates with a guy I liked. Just like it did when I took downhill skiing lessons. Tennis was also a lessons obsession of mine. That relationship lasted a year but my game never improved enough to give the guy a good enough partner on the court. He was an all-round jock and in hindsight I'm glad I didn't end up with him. I would not have liked a life of making game night snacks and having a living room designed entirely around a big screen and puffy furniture. I took the breakup hard. But now I can see the wisdom the universe dispensed when we didn't end up together.

The Savannah Bananas and their archival, the Party Animals, have brought a different kind of energy to the game of baseball and they are fun to watch. Don't pass up watching the 20/20 YouTube video below. It will explain the popularity, vision and history of the Bananas better than I can. But if I have to describe them, I'd say they are like the Globe Trotters are in basketball only the Bananas play baseball.

I once mentioned the Bananas here at the continuum care campus and no one knew what I was talking about. I was not surprised. My fellow residents are crazy about college basketball and football and will talk endlessly about coaches and players to the point I'd like to gag myself with a spoon. They wear their favorite team colors and have flags and memorabilia decorating their doors. Once in a while I'll sign up for a viewing party but will leave right after the food is served. I just don't get it but I'm sure they don't understand how I can spend an hour every morning looking at Facebook Shorts. 

We all like what we like...unless you're stuck in Chameleon mode and I suspect a woman that just moved in with husband is stuck. He taught theology in a Christian college and was also a minister for a couple of decades. She looks at him like Lady and the Tramp looked at one another in their famous spaghetti and meatball scene. I do not think I'm going to like this couple---they seem phony---but she has demoted me from the 2nd to the 3rd fattest person living here so I'm happy about that turn of events. ©

 

We Won’t Die of Boredom - Baseball and the Sistine Chapel

 

I’ve known for a long time that if anyone is bored here at the continuum care complex it’s their own fault. They throw out a bunch activities and we pick and choose whatever suits us. These things are always on our weekly calendars: Pilates, spiritual care, mahjong, strength training, cardio boxing, cardio drumming, the walking club, two socials/happy hours, Faith Fellowship, Morning Coffee Hour, movie night, a Grief Support Group, Euchre, Cribbage, mexican train dominoes, line dancing, tai chi, Caregivers Support Group, and Coffee with the Chaplin's plus Bridge which meets twice a week and sometimes more often. Cutthroat bridge is a serious endeavor around here. Out of all that above stuff I’ve narrowed down my participation to mahjong, the social hours and tai chi. Then there is lunch and dinner to fit into our schedules if we plan to eat on campus.

Monthly offerings is a different boxes of goodies and I lap them all up: a birthday party with live music, a lecture (usually given by a college professor or a book author), a residents dialogue with the CEO, a book club and an off campus outing. And starting in September the new creative writing club. Not every month but often enough there’s a crafting for charity day, a religious book club and opening season viewing parties for football, basketball and baseball. New on our calendar right now are two motor coach day-long trips. Michiganders will know what Turkeyville is and how popular going to Amish country in Indiana is. I’ve been there done these trips with my old Red Hat Society group, so I don't think I'll sign up.

I did signed up for one of the off campus baseball games. This will be only my second time seeing a live base game and the first time my husband’s nephew was playing and Don got hit in the head with a baseball. The home team we will be supporting is in the Midwest Minor League, a High-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers---whatever that means. If you were reading my blog last summer you know I decided to teach myself about baseball and I’ve done that. I’ve watched all the Tiger games this season and now I understand how and why my dad could be catnapping but if we touched the dials on the TV set he’d wake up and tell us not to mess with his game. There is something about the drone of the game that has the power to put me asleep but the minute the fans get loud I wake up for the replays. Best game ever for those of us who want to multi-task. The Tigers aren’t doing so good this season but I’m in Tiger country and one of you wise blogger friends told me to pick a team that’s popular where I live to follow so I’d find more people to talk baseball with. And that advice has worked out well.

This week our Life Enrichment Director took a bus load of us downtown to see the Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel exhibit---doesn’t she have a fun job? The exhibit was awesome, worth the $15 price of admission to anyone, like me, who hasn’t seen the real thing. It’s advertised as “a life-sized up close, never-before seen perspective of the genius masterpieces." A few people who'd been to Rome and saw the Sistine Chapel were on our bus and said this was just as powerful because we could get right up close enough to count eye lashes and to read the placard descriptions of each panel without being shoulder to shoulder with strangers from around the world.

In art history class we spent a lot of time studying the life of Michelangelo and his sculptures, paintings and inventions so I wasn't a total doofus about what we'd be seeing. It goes without saying that he understood the human body (from all those middle of the night corpses he carved up) and its said that he was so driven with his work that he'd often go weeks without changing his clothes. He was quite the opposite in terms of charm and social graces as his two biggest rivals, Leonardo deVinci and Raphael were known for, but he genius was so obvious, even back in his own time, that it didn't keep Michelangelo from getting commissions.

What surprised me about the exhibit? How many, many penises were in full view considering that after Michelangelo's death an artist was hired to cover up them up. Nothing in this display or its videos mentioned the hot controversy over all of Michelangelo's full frontal nudes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling or the artist who people called the 'breeches maker' for covering up genitals with fig-leafs and loincloths. Daniele da Volterra worked less than a year covering up penises before the chapel was needed to elect a new Pope and the scaffolding was never put back up again. Apparently the new Pope wasn't quite as offended by Michelangelo's full frontal nudes as puritanical popes Paul IV and Pius IV were. They're the ones who oversaw the most infamous commission in art history.

We have the best Life Enrichment Director on the face of the earth and if I was giving tips out to people looking for a continuum care complex or senior living village I’d say to ask to see a few months worth of the activities planned. This summer, in addition to the above she’s brought horses in from a therapy riding stable and dogs in from the Paws for a Cause organization and she sat in a dunking cage and let residents throw balls at a target to try to get her dropped into the water while we drank ‘mocktails.’ And tomorrow, I’ll be on another off campus adventure---to see a circle theater production of On Golden Pond. ©

video of exhibit