Mae's September Romance

There is an old chestnut melody called "The September Song," written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, and sung by Walter Huston, of all people, in the 1938 musical "Knickerbocker Holiday". It was a standard that moved 'em to tears in those days between the depths of the Depression and the onset of another World War, and was rife with melancholy reminders of decline and old age. Another slightly more recent standard, "Try to Remember", from "The Fantasticks," also evokes September as a period of decline. Ther are few happy songs about this month.

September inevitably brings upon us a similarly sad patina, as the bright summer ends, the days grow shorter, the year heads towards its Holiday Depression, and my birthday demarcates another ring in my tree trunk. Now there's the added annual Cultural Calamity observance that 9/11 has become (to the most nefarious it is called "Patriot's Day," even though that has been a longstanding April holiday in America-hating Massachusetts). I did not add to the woeful lamentations and imprecations that sore point on our psyches has generated. I don't care much that ABC aired a scurrilous anti-Clinton fictional docudrama. As far as I'm concerned, it was a silly counterbalance to the left-wing "Fahrenheit 911", which had its own biased assumptions (though it also had that telling, and real, footage of Bush sitting there for 7 minutes while the nation was under attack).

For me personally, this month is bringing another regretful engagement, the gradual decline of my elderly mother who is growing weaker and weaker in a rehab facility, unable to eat and fortify her increasingly frail constitution. She is conscious of her condition, aware of the need to eat, but physically so weak that she can barely pick up a fork. As hopeful as my family is of her potential strengthening, I am prepared for the "inevitable,"as my brother likes to call it. Nonogenarians do not have the greatest recuperative powers. But I speak to her every day, and try to cheer her up, though their is an underlying darkness to all our frivolous chat.

In our last conversation, which occurred on my birthday, she had totally forgotten the event, not out of thoughtlessness but simply her depleted condition. I was more than understanding. I only wished for her to be comfortable and revive her appetite. (If she were in California I'd try to get her stoned, or at least take Marinol, the pot pill, used to enhance the appetites of cancer patients). Nothing seems to be working, and she is too listless to read or watch TV. That is, for one exception.

"The only thing I want to watch," she told me, "is the baseball."

For those who belittle the sport as an archaic, slow waste of time, take that. I was happy to regale her with the details of games that she did not have televised access to, especially the Yankee contests. The Yankees are about to clinch their division, gliding easily into the title after the Boston Massacre of August, and this, of all things, is what cheers up Mae. I relate the ongoing play-by-play that I glean from my computer or from my MLB TV package, if available, and it's like I'm telling her a bedtime story. I enthusiastically described the amazing Dodger-Padre game of earlier this week, when the Dodgers rallied with four consecutive home runs in the 9th inning to overcome the San Diego advantage, then used another homer by Nomar Garciaparra to win in the tenth, after falling behind again. Even Hall of Fame announcer Vin Sculley was awed. It made the front page of the Los Angeles Times, even though there are two weeks to go in the season and the one-game resolution was so transitory that last night the Dodgers fell into second place again.

Ultimately the pennant races don't matter to Mae, but the excitement and the connection that baseball provides for her certainly does. She was mightily impressed by the Dodger outburst, and though she'll probably have forgotten about it the next time I call her (which is as soon as I finish this blog), the brightness it provides in her limited scope of experience at least justifies itself. I'm sure she is trying hard to fortify herself so that she can witness at least one more World Series--perhaps a classic betwen the two New York juggernauts. It may not be the best reason to try to remain alive, but if it works, who's to quibble?