Looking Out For "Our Yankees"

Dear The Mums,

In today's edition of "New York Today," this story caught my eye, and I thought you'd enjoy it:

This week in 1903, construction began on a vast project on a hilltop in Washington Heights: a baseball stadium for a newly arrived American League team.

“The work of blasting rock will begin tomorrow morning,” The Times reported. “There are some 5,000 cubic yards of rock to be removed and a great many trees cut down.”

In only six weeks, Hilltop Park opened, and the New York Highlanders played their first game.

In 10 years, they would move down from the hilltop to the banks of the Harlem River. The Highlanders name would no longer fit.

They became the Yankees.

Later in the day, Amy texted this picture and caption to me:

The king with blue and orange braces.

We went on to have this text exchange:

Me:  If they are for the Mets, Bubbe is not happy!  But he is adorable!
Amy:  No.  She's fine -- it is for the Knicks.
Me:  Glad to hear it.

Just wanted you to know that even though I don't really follow baseball, I'm always looking out for "our Yankees."

xoxo,
~ Boo!

P.S.  I forgot to tell you...

Last Sunday, Daddy and I went to Baltimore for Mrs. Steinberg's unveiling.  Despite the circumstances, it was so good to see Barbara, Heidi, Dr. Steinberg and everyone else, including Arlene and Alan Blocker.  Unlike after the funeral, we went back to the house, which also was nice.  I don't remember the last time I was at 1421 Winding Waye Lane.  But here's the thing I forgot to tell you...  In the hall bathroom of the house, I took this photo and texted it to Amy (who couldn't be there because it was her weekend with Ian):

She responded with this:  One of my earliest visual memories...

A little while later, I sent her these two pictures:

 

Here's what she wrote back:  I spent hours with that weaving lady.  There is a little bowl of wool next to her...

Indeed there is.  Such long-ago memories...

Closing Thoughts

Earlier today I spent some time perusing the New York Times. In three different articles, I was struck by the profundity of the closing sentence: the first was sad, the second real and the third inspirational.

The first was an obituary for Marilyn Cooper, a Tony Award winning character actress who appears to have had a rich, rewarding and successful career and died on Wednesday night at the age of 74. The last line of the obituary says, “She has no immediate survivors.” Sad…

The second was the Shortcuts column in the business section, which this week offered exceedingly timely guidance about what to say and do (and, conversely, what not to say and do) when a friend is laid off. The closing sentence of this one: “As Ms. Trunk says, ‘Most people’s moronic comments are rooted in kindness.’”

And now, the best, which appears in an op-ed by Tom Bergeron, host of “Dancing With the Stars.” Of course, pop culture Neanderthal that I am, I had no idea who Bergeron was until I read the blurb under his name. In any event, he wrote about Susan Boyle (yes, even I know who she is), the unemployed, 40-something British woman who is belting out I Dreamed a Dream all over YouTube. Pondering our snarky, smug attitudes toward those who are less than young, beautiful or “cool” (however you define it), Bergeron closes with this: “We need the courage to believe that stirring voices can be found in unlikely places.”

Indeed, let us seek out those stirring voices and encourage them to sing.