17 again, and erasing the Dark Ages

There is a movie out now – 17 Again – that brings back memories, not all of them good. As I have written before, my life took a terrible turn when I was just two weeks short of 13 when my mother unexpectedly died.

Mom was just 48 and I was about to go into those teenage years that are the most difficult. On top of that, my dad remarried a year later and we immediately relocated from a small town in New York to the West Coast.

Maybe kids in these hectic times can survive that kind of upheaval better because families today are less structured, if they are structured at all. Many times there have been at least one divorce, so kids are more use to blended families. Actually, I don’t ever recall a blended family growing up. I don’t even remember hearing about a divorce.

My mother’s death and the move West began my “Dark Ages.” They lasted until my 20s, when I found myself again at Western and eventually married. Pieces of the darkness persisted for many years. It wasn’t easy to lose.

I have yet to see the 17 Again movie, but I know its premise. It’s a premise I have often thought about: What would I have been liked if I had stayed behind when my father moved West?

When I found out about the move, I put up a fight. I was 14 and was developing an independence that young teens do. I almost won, but my father secretly made a deal with the brother next to me – Dave – and he agreed to go West, knowing I would follow him. Once we got out to Ferndale, Wash., Dave stayed for a few weeks and then headed back to our old hometown in New York for his senior year.

I was stuck.

Not only was I stuck, but I was now alone, and alone in a house where I wasn’t wanted, except for my father.

So, if I could have a mulligan, and go back to my teen years, I likely would not be here now writing this. I would have stayed with my sister, older by 11 years, who was married. We would have lived in our old house and I would have continued on being a good student and an exceptional athlete (conversely, I was not much of a student or athlete at Ferndale High, more of a loner who walked railroad tracks and into the woods as often as I could.

I likely would have starred in three sports at that small New York school, and then who knows? Would I have been good enough to get some financial aid to some small college? Maybe.

In my dreams, I wind up playing basketball and baseball at St. Bonaventure. That would have been a great time because one of the best players – maybe the best – I saw in college came through St. Bonaventure at the same time – Tom Stith.

Likely, I would have become a better baseball player. I could really hit. Not a lot of power, but I probably would have developed that. I could not run fast, but I wasn’t slow. And I could field well, and had a strong arm before hurting it the winter of my freshman year at Ferndale.

Would I have been good enough to get picked to play pro baseball? Yes, I would like to dream. Then, of course, I would hit over .400, belt over 60 home runs and drive in over 200 runs.

Obviously, that’s when the dream breaks down. There is no way to forecast what a person would do that far in advance. And my dreams at this point become more fantasy than dreams.

Maybe I would have gone back to my old hometown and stunk it up, in the classroom in and sports. I don’t really believe that. But anything is possible.

All I know is that I didn’t get the chance to prove myself. Instead I fell into a dark hole from which it took a long time to climb out of. Those years are a big regret for me, and there is nothing I can do to erase them. They happened. I wish they hadn’t, but they did.

I do know it was a terrible waste

Over the years, I have done a lot of reading and delving into the spirituality of the human condition because of other things that have happened to me. I have finally come to accept through that knowledge that my dark ages were meant to me. They are part of the spiritual journey I needed to make me a better soul.

Because of my acceptance of the spiritual, I now know there was no way I could have gone back and lived out my dreams in my old home town. It just wasn’t going to happen. So I have become more at ease with myself.

But when things go badly and I want to get away, I lay down, relax, and dream of the time when I scored 65 points against Ohio State and Jerry Lucas and St. Bona’s won. And I won several scoring battles against Cincinnati’s Oscar Robertson, too.

And after Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961, I hit 62 in ’62.

Have a great month.

You are loved.